Intellectual Property

1790 – First copyright law was put into effect and applied to books, maps, and charts.  The works had to be original, non-functional, and fixed in a tangible medium.  Established a copyright term of 14 years.

 

1845 – The earliest use of the term Intellectual Property appears in the Massachusetts circuit court ruling in the patent case Davoll et al. v. Brown.   

 

1884 – The Supreme Court concluded that photographs could be copyrighted.

 

1909 – The copyright law was amended to include any form that could be seen and read visually by humans.

 

1967 – The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was founded as one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations organizations and it has since remained responsible for the protection of intellectual property.

 

1971 – The International Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works established that works protected under copyright include literary and artistic works which includes every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domain, dramatic and dramatico musical works, choreographic works, photographic works, and works of applied art.

 

1976 – Copyright Act sets out four factors: 1. the purpose and character of the use, 2. the nature of the copyrighted work, 3. the amount and substantiality, and 4. the effect of the use upon the market.

 

1980 – The copyright law was amended to address software programs.  The concept of a literary work was extended to include programs, computers, and databases that “exhibit authorship.”  A computer program is defined as a “set of statements or instructions to be used directly in a computer in order to bring about certain results.”

 

1980 – After the passing of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 intellectual property became a more recognizable term.

 

1981 - The first software patent was granted for a program which assisted in converting rubber into tires.

 

1996 – WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996 notes that copyright protection extends to expression and not to ideas, procedures, or methods of operation.

 

1998 – Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) signed into law.  Makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures.

 

2001 – Creative Commons was officially launched.