Originality in Law
In law, originality has become an important legal concept with respect to intellectual property, where creativity and invention have manifest as copyrightable works. In the patent law of the United States and most other countries, only original inventions are subject to protection. In addition to being original, inventions submitted for a patent must also be useful and nonobvious.
In United States copyright law and the law of many other states, copyrights protect only original works of authorship, a property which has been historically and legally linked to a concept of "creativity". A work must pass a threshold of originality in order to be copyrightable.
In United Kingdom intellectual property law, a derived work can demonstrate originality, and must do so if it is to respect copyright.
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Famous quotes containing the words originality and/or law:
“We believe that Carlyle has, after all, more readers, and is better known to-day for this very originality of style, and that posterity will have reason to thank him for emancipating the language, in some measure, from the fetters which a merely conservative, aimless, and pedantic literary class had imposed upon it, and setting an example of greater freedom and naturalness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You are, or you are not the President of The National University Law School. If you are its President I wish to say to you that I have been passed through the curriculum of study of that school, and am entitled to, and demand my Diploma. If you are not its President then I ask you to take your name from its papers, and not hold out to the world to be what you are not.”
—Belva Lockwood (1830–1917)