Hotel Being Sued for Using the Dewey Decimal System

cbull writes "Did you know the Dewey Decimal System isn't in the public domain? The rights are owned by the Online Computer Library Center. They are suing the Library Hotel in New York for trademark infringement. In addition, according to the article, libraries pay at least $500/year to use the system."

Comments

Re:well damn!

[Frobnicator]

i would like to copyright all the prime numbers.

I never knew so many /. posters were so ignorant of trademark, service marks, patants, and copyright distinctions. You cannot copyright such a thing. At best, you could get a patant on a method of finding prime numbers. OCLC's law suit is the right action for them to take, if you understand the way the laws work.

• Trademark & service marks = ownership of a particular mark for a particular usage in a particular domain which can be renewed as long as the mark is in use, to prevent a group's name from being tarnished by shoddy companies.
• Patants = limited monopolies on the use of a method, to ensure that inventors have time to transform ideas into marketable (and profitable) products.
• Copyrights = (supposedly) limited term restrictions on reproduction of any recorded information, to allow authors and artists to collect royalties.

They can claim trademark violations because the hotel is using the marks owned by OCLC without permission. It would be like some no-name snack company naming their products "Twinkies" and "Ding-Dongs". Now I'm off to paste this to all the others who don't bother to understand the law before spouting off about how bad it is.

frob