Protecting "ideas".not content

[esllou]

Can you copyright ideas?

Let's take an example everyone is familiar with..the good ol' million dollar homepage. Now there are a hundred of them around. Could the originator of that idea have patented it or would that have been a total waste of time?

I suppose you have to be very specific in your patent. And you have no hope when webmasters from China flout your copyright anyway.

[hunderdown]

Patent and copyright are two very different things.

Under copyright law, you can't copyright an idea. You copyright "original expression" of an idea.

Under patent law, you also can't protect an idea. But you can protect an invention, if it's original, if there is no "prior art," and if it's not an obvious extension of an existing technology. Recently, patent law got extended into business methods, so it's possible that you could patent a process of making money from a million dollar homepage IF you could prove that you did it first.... Doubtful.

[babbsela]

No, you can't protect ideas by either copyright or patent. You can only protect the expression of the idea, which means how the idea is used or put into practice.