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COPYRIGHT IN COMPUTER CIRCUIT DIAGRAMS
The Copyright Act includes pictorial and graphical works among copyrightable works. Pictorial and graphical works include maps, charts, scientific, technical, or engineering de-sign drawings, and other pictorial or graphical works. In a recent legal interpretation, the IPO addressed the issue of whether a circuit diagram represented on a computer circuit board is a "work" within the meaning of the Copyright Act.
The IPO stated that before the design or layout of an electrical circuit is expressed as a design drawing or layout drawing using specific graphical language, it belongs to the categories of concepts, ideas, procedures, or systems (as referred to in Article 10-1 of the Act). Because it is not expressed in a specific form, it is not a work within the meaning of the Act, and the Act does not apply to it. However, when such a circuit layout is drawn into graphical form to make a diagram for a printed circuit board, it becomes a graphical work protectable under the Act.
The IPO further stated that, as technical design drawings are expressly included in the scope of pictorial and graphical works under the Copy-right Act, if the original circuit diagram of a mi-crocomputer circuit board is a technical design drawing, it is copyrightable. If a circuit board manufactured according to such a circuit dia-gram is made by transferring an image of the diagram onto film and using this image to create the circuit board, and the content of the work is displayed (reproduced) on the circuit board, such manufacture involves reproduction or adaptation of the graphical work of the original circuit dia-gram. Simply stated, if the content of a circuit diagram that is a work within the meaning of the Copyright Act is reproduced on the circuit board, then the circuit board is a "reproduction," within the meaning of the Act, of the circuit diagram.