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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] OT: Colour

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] OT: Colour
  • Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:38:55 +0000

Peter Brink wrote:
Antoine skrev:
Le mardi 13 février 2007 à 21:31 +0000, Rob Myers a écrit :
Mike Linksvayer wrote:

Tango uses BY-SA for icons and the base palette is in the public domain.

http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Desktop_Project
Can palettes be copyrighted? Does it make a difference if they are an analogue set of samples or as structured data?
Regardless of copyright, at least one colour has been patented: the
"International Klein Blue".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue

It's not the colour as such that has been patented, its the medium, the pigment itself that has been patented. Since chemical compounds can be patented that is not a strange thing.

I've tried to track down the IKB patent but to no avail. The number usually given for the patent doesn't show up in the French patent database, and there are no useful entries for Klein or his collaborator. In theory, since IKB was a uniquely vivid blue for the time, patenting the formula would have had the effect of restricting use of that exact blue to Klein.

Cadbury's have claimed a patent on the color purple in the US.

But these aren't copyrights, so they don't touch on CC licensing. Can palettes be copyrighted or are they just facts? Pantone claim that you can't use their colour definition names, but that seems more likely to be to do with trade description law rather than copyright.

- Rob.




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