can you copyright mathematics such as e=mc^2?

Question

argument with a friend and he believes you can copyright anything which is written

Answer 1

You can copyright a written work or a musical composition or a creative work. An individual equation cannot be copyrighted. No one 'owns' mathematics; they might own a specific implementation of something, but the theory cannot be copyrighted. A patent, on the other hand, involves a device or method for doing something. It also cannot be used to claim ownership of a mathematical item.

Your friend is right...you can copyright a written work. But that does not fence off every equation in it.

Answer 2

I'm just going to reiterate what PMP said in a way that might seem clearer.

Information cannot be copyrighted.
The way you PRESENT information can be copyrighted.
Verbatim from the US Governements copyright website:

Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

So the answer to your question is really a matter of symantics. The equation itself is a fact or idea, and per the above, it is not protected by copyright. Einstein's original paper, however, would be (and probably is) copyrighted because it is his personal expression of the ideas and facts the equation represents. Simply writing the equation down on a sheet of paper would not constitute sufficient intellectual property to qualify for copyright.

However, if were to do something a little more clever, like combine gaps between the letter E and the equal sign into some kind of optical illusion and then maybe make the letter "c" look the sun or some other form of light, that could be copyrighted. But again, the copyright would protect my method of expressing the equation, not the equation itself. More likely, I could have such a design protected as a work of art and, to illustrate your side of the arguement, I could sell the art without having to pay Einstein's estate because, once again, E=mc^2 is a fact, not an intellectual property, and therefore not under copyright.

Answer 3

yes, but to be valid it has to be original composition. does your friend claim to have come up with this on his own? unlike patents, the copyright office does not inspect or verify claims of the author. they have issued hundreds of copyrights on the national anthem, of course none of these would prove valid in a legal action.

generally about the only copyright of interest for mathematical terms is for a textbook. copyright does not apply to ideas or concepts which would make the equations useful.

Answer 4

Well yes you can write as much you like but I do not your teacher well be happy for what have writtern well because
e is known as a constant value so be carful with these litters and one more thing
What is wrong with these variabals (x, y,...)

Answer 5

I personally don't agree with that.

Answer 6

yep - and it is