Re: Can you own the number 10.5% ?

On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, John R. Levine <johnl[_at_]iecc.com> wrote:
>
> A friend of mine recently wrote a book about personal financial
> software. He mentioned in passing that the long term return on stocks
> is 10.5%, a number that he'd read in a newsletter from Vanguard. That
> number is widely cited in the press -- in a few minutes I found it on
> the web in an article in the Detroit News and a feature piece on family
> finance on Money Magazine's web site, with no citation of a source in
> either case.
>
> Shortly after the book came out, his publisher received a letter from
> Ibbotson Associates, who he'd never heard of until that point, saying
> that the 10.5% number was theirs since they were the only people doing
> long-term analysis of market returns, that was a number they'd
> calculated, and he'd misappropriated their proprietary number. I
> don't know if they demanded a specific remedy or not.
>
> It may well be the case that Ibbotson was the original source of the
> number, but I can't see how they have any claim on it. They can't
> copyright it since it's a fact, and it's well established that you
> can't copyright facts. It's not a trade secret, since it's not
> secret, it's published all over the place.
>
> Am I missing something here?

I think that you have to ask what sort of legal theory they are basing their claim upon. Copyright is almost entirely out since copyright does not extend to ideas, and this would considered most probably an idea. There is no mention of patent, where there is a slightly higher (but still low) chance.

That leaves in my mind trade secrets. There is no real indication that your friend had any sort of confidential relationship with Ibbotson, and no indication that he had knew of such from the source of the number. So, I would think that trade secret is out also. I can't think of anything else that would really work here.

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The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 1999 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
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as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
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Bruce E. Hayden                      bhayden[_at_]acm.org
Phoenix, Arizona                     bhayden[_at_]ieee.org
                                     bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com