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Topic: software of a copyrighted assessment (Read 438 times) |
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charliezenter
Newbie
Posts: 2
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software of a copyrighted assessment
« on: Jan 8th, 2006, 12:02am » |
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I recently wrote a software that scores and prints out the results of a copyrighted assessment. The software does not include any of the copyrighted questions from the assessment.
The owners of the assessment contend that they hold the intellectual rights to the assessment as well as the copyright and that I have no rights to distribute a software that scores their assessment.
Because this software is simply scoring and printing out the numeric results I don't believe that there is violation of copyright laws.
Do any of you have any thoughts on this? Is the scores that my software analyzes and printouts their intellectual property?
Thanks so much in advance for your responses.
C.Z.
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Isaac
Senior Member
Posts: 3472
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Re: software of a copyrighted assessment
« Reply #1 on: Jan 9th, 2006, 7:02am » |
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I'm not sure what rights are included in "intellectual rights". With respect to copyright infringement, the questions to ask are whether the assessment includes any copyrightable material, and whether in the process of computing the results, your program tromps on any of the copyright holder's rights in that material.
I would expect that a successful argument would be based on using only uncopyrightable facts from the assessment.
Problems could arise in the method of obtaining the assessment, in the method of retrieving information from the assessment. I can imagine fact patterns where obtaining the assessment violates some probhition on distribution, or where reading the assessment into your software program involves making copies of one type or another.
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Isaac
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charliezenter
Newbie
Posts: 2
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Re: software of a copyrighted assessment
« Reply #2 on: Jan 27th, 2006, 8:32am » |
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When administering the assessment I use an assessment form purchased from the distributor. The patient completes the assessment on paper and hands it to me.
I then simply enter the results from the paper assessment into the computer program which calculates the scores and prints out the results.
The reason for using the computer to score the results is that it can take up to one hour to calculate the results by hand. Their are no copyright material on the computer program.
For example, item one from the pencil and paper assessment may read:
1) Do you enjoy writing stories?
The computer program simply shows:
1) ?
One of the claims the other party is having is that the results (the final score) is their intellectual right and that I cannot use it.
C.Z.
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Isaac
Senior Member
Posts: 3472
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Re: software of a copyrighted assessment
« Reply #3 on: Jan 27th, 2006, 10:00am » |
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I'm generally suspicious of any claim that generically refers to "intellectual property rights" without identifying a particular type of intellectual property.
I don't believe a copyright would protect the calculated result and your described calculating method does not appear to implicate any of the copyright holder's rights.
While it is possible that the method of calculating the score could be patented, I would expect a patent to be mentioned while saber waving.
That said, I recently read of a California appeals court decision allowing the USGA to protect a golf handicap calculating formula against a company (Arroyo) who wanted to sell software using that formula. The basis of the court decision appeared to be that Arroyo was claiming to calculate the official USGA handicap.
These kinds of laws vary widely from state to state, and I suspect that Arroyo could work around the issue even in California by avoiding false creating the impression of association with the USGA. Unfortunately losing a court case can result in an injunction forcing the losing party to give an extra wide berth.
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Isaac
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