Popular tech blog sued by self-proclaimed “inventor of e-mail” hits back

"This fight could be the end of Techdirt, even if we are completely right."

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[eyesoars]

How lame can a guy get?

Copyright? Copyright doesn't protect anything regarding his claims about email. Copyrights do not apply to titles, names, or phrases. The most he can do with a copyright is use it to prove that he had a program then. And prevent anyone else from using that program or its derivative works. As if.

As for e-mail, Unix had single-host email by 1976 at the latest, and probably a couple years before that. Not that it was called email; it was 'mail'. I'm pretty sure most other "time sharing" operating systems of the time had similar features.

He has no trademark on 'email'. And it's not like it is or could be a trade secret.

Those are the only possibilities for protecting any rights he might imagine he has to email.

If he thinks his "invention" of email is worth anything, I've got a large suspension [of disbelief?] bridge to sell him.

 

[eyesoars]

Joe F[/url]":npuhm9n7]

daemonios[/url]":npuhm9n7]The man is a fool. You can tell by his use of copyright as proof that he invented anything. Hint: you don't copyright inventions, you copyright expressions of ideas. Moreover, in most countries registration isn't even necessary, you need only prove that you created the work. Copyright registration simply makes said proof easier.

Maybe he means to say he has the copyright to the word "email", but isolated words don't constitute "works" that can be protected by copyright. If he actually means a system for sending and receiving messages, that would constitute an invention, and could be protected through a patent. But I see no signs of patents being involved, and in addition patents only cover their specific claims, so a similar system that worked in a different way might not be in breach of any patent.

So, is the claim simply that he was the first person to use the word email? Well, whoop dee doo...

[EDIT]Ok so I apparently read the article to mean he'd claimed copyright for the term email, rather than a computer program. In any case, copyright protection of a specific software program doesn't mean invention of anything.

A term can't be copyrighted. It can be a trademark. You see the little (r) for Registered Trademark all over the place, for Windows, Android, Linux, etc. (as an aside, the history of the Linux trademark is rather interesting...)

As far as copyright registration is concerned, up until the late 1970s/early 1980s, it needed to be registered to be a valid copyright in the US.

I don't think this is right. You needed a registered copyright in order to obtain monetary damages for infringement. The copyright declaration in the work was enough to establish the copyright.