Baker v. Selden

Supreme Court of the United States
101 U.S. 99, 25 L. Ed. 841 (1880)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Copyright protection for a book explaining a system or art does not extend to the system or art itself. To gain an exclusive right to the underlying useful art, one must obtain a patent, not a copyright.

Facts:

Charles Selden developed a unique system of bookkeeping designed to simplify double-entry accounting.
In 1859, Selden authored and obtained a copyright for a book titled “Selden’s Condensed Ledger, or Book-keeping Simplified.”
The book contained an introductory essay explaining his bookkeeping system.
The book also included annexed blank forms with ruled lines and headings to illustrate the system and show how it was to be used in practice.
The system could not be practiced without using ruled account books and forms substantially similar to those illustrated in Selden's book.
Baker produced and sold account books that used a system similar to Selden's, achieving the same results but with a different arrangement of columns and headings.

Procedural Posture:

The complainant, the executor of Charles Selden's estate, filed a bill of complaint against Baker in the United States Circuit Court for infringement of copyright.
The Circuit Court (trial court) rendered a decree in favor of the complainant, Selden.
The defendant, Baker, appealed the Circuit Court's decree to the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Issue:

Does the copyright of a book that explains a particular system of art, and which includes blank forms for implementing that system, grant the author the exclusive right to use the system and the forms described therein?

Opinions:

Majority - Mr. Justice Bradley

No. The copyright of a book explaining a system does not confer upon the author the exclusive right to make and use the system itself. There is a clear distinction between a book as a literary work and the art or system it is intended to illustrate. Copyright protects the author's explanation and description (the expression), but it does not protect the underlying art, method, or system (the idea). Granting such protection through copyright would circumvent the patent system, which is the proper avenue for securing exclusive rights to useful arts and inventions and requires a rigorous examination of novelty. The forms and diagrams in Selden's book are necessary incidents to the art; by publishing the book without patenting the art, Selden gave the art and the necessary means of its application to the public. The purpose of a book explaining a useful art is to communicate knowledge for practical application, and this purpose would be frustrated if the knowledge could not be used.

Analysis:

This case is a cornerstone of American copyright law, establishing the fundamental principle known as the idea-expression dichotomy, later codified in 17 U.S.C. § 102(b). The decision clarifies that copyright protects the particular manner in which an author expresses an idea, but never the idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation itself. This prevents copyright from being used to monopolize functional systems or useful knowledge, channeling protection for such inventions to the more stringent requirements of patent law. The case also introduced the merger doctrine, which holds that where an idea can only be expressed in one or a very limited number of ways, that expression cannot be copyrighted because doing so would effectively grant a monopoly over the underlying idea.

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