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[oxyg3n]

Hello guys. Would it be copyright violation if I publish my own solutions to some math/algorithm problems from the textbook in my internet blog.

[Zonath]

Look at 17 USC 102(b):

In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

Typically, mathematical formulas are considered to be 'ideas' or 'systems' and not expression.  So, nobody can copyright the idea that 1+1=2.  Of course, an equation can be expressed in a creative enough way for the expressive content to be protected by copyright.  So, if the math problem is expressed as a 'story problem' (for one instance), the elements of the story can be protected by copyright, although the underlying equations would not be.

Now, algorithms and other equations that are sufficiently novel can be patented, but if these are the sorts of equations that were discovered hundreds of years ago, then there's not really much chance of there being a patent issue either.

[Kaitlin]

Typically, mathematical formulas are considered to be 'ideas' or 'systems' and not expression.  So, nobody can copyright the idea that 1+1=2.  Of course, an equation can be expressed in a creative enough way for the expressive content to be protected by copyright.  So, if the math problem is expressed as a 'story problem' (for one instance), the elements of the story can be protected by copyright, although the underlying equations would not be.

When creativity is used in how a group of non-protected data are arranged, however, the resulting arrangement can be protected by copyright. 

I would expect enforceable copyright protection for how the authors choose and order a series of problems within a textbook.  But answers to such questions are another matter.  If answers alone were set out in the same order, my feeling is it would be hard for copyright to be stretched to cover that.  (But, then again, powerful copyright owners do keep trying to stretch the scope of copyright.  It's not beyond imagining that a major textbook publisher might succeed in causing trouble even if not eventually prevailing.)