Re: Copyright Infringement Happening at Conference Group - Help!

From: Dan L Burk <BURKDANL[_at_]shu.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 13:18:09 -0400

On 07/23/98, Thomas Workman <tworkman[_at_]erols.com> wrote:
>
> There is no authority for a search, as a reason to deny registration.
> You don't get a search for your $20, which is the fee to register a
> copyright. A patent or a trademark are several hundred dollars to
> apply for, and you get a search. You get what you pay for. For
> $20, no governmental organization can conduct any kind of a search...

I have an idea -- why don't I put you in touch with the folks who told me they do a search when an application comes in, and you can explain to them why they don't do searches?

I should emphasize (again) that they did not claim to do a search on the scale that a Patent Examiner conducts (when Patent Examiners in fact bother to do searches, but forget that), but they were quite emphatic about what they do -- this was probably because they were correcting some pontificating that I had done, quite similar to yours, about how the Copyright Office does not, and cannot, do searches.

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Dan L. Burk
Seton Hall University
burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu

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Received on Sat Jul 25 1998 - 17:12:16 GMT