This is not legal advise, contact an attorney. That said. . . there are essentially two issues Copyright and Patent: Copyright my understanding is that copyright requires original authorship, original expression (not necessarily artistic, i.e. software), captured in a tangible medium. Patent my understanding is that patent requires unique, new, and useful function Either of these, if applicable could be used to charge someone for making copies. The best place to go for an answer to these questions would be the legal forum on CompuServe. Best regards, Timothy L. Turner, C.P.M. Buying Specialist Thomson Consumer Electronics, Inc. ---------- From: TechNet-request To: TechNet Subject: PCB Copyright Date: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 8:50AM I'm a participant in TECHNO-L, an e-news mailing list regarding intellectual property and technology transfer. I posted a "simple" question there which is still being debated, and someone suggested I post it to your list which he says is the list for PCB designers and fabricators. The question is, can the design of printed circuit board be copyrighted, and royalties charged for each copy produced? Note that I'm talking PCBs, not microcircuits which can be protected as a Mask Work. Most respondents in TECHNO-L have concluded that it is not possible to protect the design because only artistic expression (and not utility) can be protected by copyright. However, one respondent reported that Israel courts have concluded that a PCB design is protectable under copyright. I'm sure you've hashed this over years ago. If someone would be so kind as to enlighten our group, and if possible point us toward an archive of the discussion (if it exists), we'd be very grateful. Thank you. -- James R. ("Jim") Palmer Licensing Executive Office of Technology Transfer Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. Oak Ridge, Tennessee