Plagiarism is a creature of academia and journalism, pertaining to usurping another’s work as one’s own without attribution. In only those areas, it serves as a check on intellectual integrity and breaches therefrom. Those in academia and journalism could care less about asking permission to use another’s work. So as noble as these disciplines might be under the plagiarism doctrine, there remains an unspoken intellectual dishonesty at the core of these disciplines.
Copyright is a commercial embodiment related to plagiarism, but differs from plagiarism in a key respect. Copyright concerns usurping another’s work as one’s own without securing permission from the original author. That is, in copyright, the focus is not simply attribution, because it doesn’t matter whether the usurper actually is aware of the original work. Permission is what matters, and damages can flow therefrom when permission is not granted.
The doctrine of Fair Use provides an exception to the iron fist of the copyright laws. Most of academia and journalism uses of copyrighted work typically avoid damages from copyright infringement under this doctrine. Parody is another strain of Fair Use that spares one the ravages of copyright infringement.
Now patents are a different creature apart from plagiarism and copyrights. Patents liberally include the work of others, regardless of attribution or permission. This flows necessarily from the nature of patents—building upon the inventive works of others as embodied in the prior art. So blindly copying and pasting into a patent application information obtained from a number of sources without attribution or permission is tolerated and encouraged, provided such content is within the prior art. Nevertheless, patents can be found to be unenforceable should the patentee not fully disclose to the USPTO Examiner all printed publications, patents or other information material to the patentability of their claimed invention, to the extent of their being aware of such information.
Copyright is a commercial embodiment related to plagiarism, but differs from plagiarism in a key respect. Copyright concerns usurping another’s work as one’s own without securing permission from the original author. That is, in copyright, the focus is not simply attribution, because it doesn’t matter whether the usurper actually is aware of the original work. Permission is what matters, and damages can flow therefrom when permission is not granted.
The doctrine of Fair Use provides an exception to the iron fist of the copyright laws. Most of academia and journalism uses of copyrighted work typically avoid damages from copyright infringement under this doctrine. Parody is another strain of Fair Use that spares one the ravages of copyright infringement.
Now patents are a different creature apart from plagiarism and copyrights. Patents liberally include the work of others, regardless of attribution or permission. This flows necessarily from the nature of patents—building upon the inventive works of others as embodied in the prior art. So blindly copying and pasting into a patent application information obtained from a number of sources without attribution or permission is tolerated and encouraged, provided such content is within the prior art. Nevertheless, patents can be found to be unenforceable should the patentee not fully disclose to the USPTO Examiner all printed publications, patents or other information material to the patentability of their claimed invention, to the extent of their being aware of such information.