Copyright and Fair Use Reflection

When you hear the words copyright or patent, they could leave you with an odd taste in your mouth. I say that because to me, when I hear copyright or patent, I think of lawsuits of how people have used something that infringed on the rights of a certain copyright or patent. Copyrights and patents are attached to so many different types of things in the world. They can be attached to something as small as a motherboard in a computer to a massive piece of an airplane to song lyrics. The lists goes on and on. As long as items/materials are still being invented and created, copyrights and patents will always be around. Copyrights date back to the early years of the United States. An interesting fact stated by one of the copyright videos was that Alexander Graham Bell known for inventing the telephone only received the credit because he beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by a mere 2 hours. So, since Bell received his patent, he was the one to go down in history to be known as inventing the telephone. The lesson learned there would be to always take the correct path when you want to invent something and get your patents as soon as possible!

Copyrights and patents are very important to have because if you create something, copyrights and patents will protect you and your invention from people trying to mimic or steal your invention idea. When I worked at my previous job which was a medical device company, we had a wall in one of our buildings loaded with patent plaques from all of our many creations within the medical device industry. The wall was packed from floor to ceiling with our patents and those were not even all of them. I was lucky enough to assist in organizing all the patents in alphabetical and numerical order before they were hung on the wall. Everyone will come across copyrights and patents in their everyday lives and it is truly normal now to see the unique copyright symbol© on just about everything you own and even look at.

I found it very interesting that copyright and fair use laws allow educators to have so much freedom when it comes to using different items or materials in their classrooms. I like that these laws are kind to educators because it would be hard to teach if everyone was trying to sue every educator all over the country and/or world for what they are teaching. For example, if a teacher wants to make copies of an article that goes along with their social studies lesson, they have the choice to make enough copies for every student in the class. As long as educators give credit to the source of their used material/item, they can use it within their classroom to teach a lesson. Another point from the videos was that educators can not decrease the value of the material or item being used to help teach, otherwise that could end up in a lawsuit.

So since copyrights and patents do not seem to be leaving any time soon, we all will have to make sure that we are using and appropriately citing our sources properly to give credit to where it is due. For everyone who wants to invent or create something brand new, make sure you get your copyrights, trademarks and patents as quickly as possible! Do not end up like Elisha Gray, kicking yourself because your competitor beat you to the patent office.

Happy Inventing Y’all 😊