Re: CSVQL? CSV SQL? tab-separated table I/O? RENAME COLUMN

On Sun, 6 May 2018 15:26:22 -0700, Ken Tanzer <ken(dot)tanzer(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

>On Fri, May 4, 2018 at 1:03 PM, George Neuner <gneuner2(at)comcast(dot)net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 3 May 2018 11:02:00 -0700, Adrian Klaver
>> <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>> >On 05/03/2018 09:47 AM, George Neuner wrote:
>> >>
>> >> ..., I would not discount the possibility that Microsoft really
>> >> has patented some variation of CSV. They absolutely did *try* to
>> >> copyright the use of + and - symbols for specifying addition and
>> >> subtraction operations in VisualBASIC.
>> >
>> >Not seeing it:
>> >
>> >http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%
>> 2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=
>> microsoft&FIELD1=AANM&co1=AND&TERM2=csv&FIELD2=&d=PTXT
>>
>>
>> That's the patent database. Microsoft tried to get a *copyright*. I
>> don't recall whether it was granted [I don't believe it was], and this
>> would have been circa ~1990, so it's hard to search for in any case.
>> Unlike the patent database, the copyright database does not contain
>> the protected material - it only gives archival references to it.
>>
>> It generated quite a bit of negative press coverage at the time. The
>> basis of Microsoft's argument was that "x + y" was a unique and
>> protectable expression of the addition concept because it could have
>> been done in other ways, e.g., by "add(x,y)".
>>
>>
>>
>I don't think in general you can copyright a file format.

CSV is deliberately public domain, but I'm not at all certain that it
could not be copyrighted otherwise. And I _am_ certain that a more
restricted derivative could be copyrighted. [more below]

You can copyright damn near anything. Under the Berne convention, the
simple fact of authorship conveys certain rights even if the "work" is
a verbatim copy of something else.

The only rules - at least in the US - are that your expression of the
idea is not known to be common usage, and that it is neither a
verbatim copy, nor a derivative of a previously *registered* work.

There are 3 kinds of copyrights: registered, explicit, and implicit.
The US recognizes registered and explicit copyrights, but protection
is available only for registered copyrights.
The US does not follow the Berne convention wrt implicit or explicit
copyrights. Explicit copyrights carry no legal weight in the US, but
they *may* influence the court in case of a dispute because they do
represent a claim of the work. The US does not recognize implicit
copyrights at all.

Checking that something is a verbatim copy of an existing work is not
that easy ... every registered work is archived in the Library of
Congress (LoC), but much of the LoC *still* is not electronically
searchable. Determining whether something is or is not derivative of
something else is not even within the US Copyright Office's mandate
... they leave that to the courts.

>You can copyright things you create,

Including data formats ...

>and you can try to keep secret the information about how they work.

Trade secret has nothing whatsoever to do with IP law. Secrets convey
no legal protection, and a secret may still be an infringement on a
protected, publicly available work.

It might be hard to figure out that a secret is infringing ...

>People can't steal your code to create CSV files, but
>you can't tell people they can't string a bunch of values together with
>commas in between if they can figure out how to do so all by themselves.

>Plus it's hard to see how "fair use" wouldn't protect something as short as
>"x+y", or ",".

"Fair Use" has no effect on whether the work is copyrightable. It
applies only after the fact as a possible defense against
infringement.

It doesn't even apply here. Fair Use is not a general exception to
infringement under the law - it is in fact specifically limited to
educational and historical use.

Fair Use does not prescribe any minimum length "sampling" of the work.
It describes that there is a maximum length "sampling" that should be
permitted to be copied verbatim into a new work. But, even there, the
allowable sample size is not fixed under the law: it is ad hoc, per
work, and decided after the fact by a court in the event of a dispute.

Note that some countries do not recognize the concept of Fair Use.

Punctuation alone is not copyrightable by law - the "work" is required
to be intelligible [for some definition - computer binaries can be
copyrighted]. The issue for a legitimate work would be whether it is
either in the public domain, or otherwise is a common usage not
deserving of a copyright.

In many cases, the Copyright Office is not equipped to determine
either status. There is a database of registered copyrights, but the
"material" that was copyrighted is NOT in that database. There is
just an LoC reference to it. There is no database of public domain
works. Nor is there a database of failed applications. There would be
archived examiner notes on failed applications, but who knows if they
are searchable?

>FWIW, Wikipedia includes CSV in its list of open formats. The article
>linked below also says no, although it seems UK-based, not U.S.

Yes. But being an "open" format doesn't prevent anyone from
*patenting* USE OF THE FORMAT in a larger process.

It probably is true that no one could get a copyright on a data format
consisting of an open-ended comma separated value sequence. Even the
Copyright Office isn't THAT LAME.

But you absolutely can copyright a comma separated sequence of literal
values. And you probably can copyright a data format using comma
separation in which a limited number of values, drawn from particular
specified domains, are listed in a particular order.

And you absolutely can *patent* use of any data format for a given
purpose [assuming the purpose itself is patentable].

If you really want to know about this stuff, you need to talk to an IP
attorney [not a general one]. IP law is a specialty, and the details
vary considerably by locale. Don't try to get legal knowledge from
wikipedia. Or even from me. <grin>

>Cheers,
>Ken
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_formats
>http://www.blplaw.com/expert-legal-insights/articles/copyright-protect-data-file-formats

Back at you,
George