One of the things I like about Cornell is that they make...

One of the things I like about Cornell is that they make available a what’s-under-copyright list that’s really easy to use. I’ve posted it various places before, and am doing so here because I’ve found an odd side-case that’s kinda nifty and initially unclear. The Cornell doc first: http://ift.tt/28hgpTJ

A body of work I love for being utterly insane in places, and perfect for humor, as well as often having amazing line work is the US Patent office patent collection. If something’s produced by the government in this context, it goes directly to the public domain – but, unaddressed in Cornell’s write-up is that there are a couple cases where some elements are protected. A specific drawing is protected if it has a copyright reference in the document itself. A trademark is protected as well.

This also applies to some specific government works examples: The current NASA meatball logo may not be reproduced, as it’s a trademark. The USMC logo (and arguably, though I see no reason to argue it, the specific phrase United States Marine Corps) likewise gets covered by trademark law.

From a goofy art/humor rebuild perspective, this means I have to check what I’m working with in a manner I wasn’t expecting to have to until last year – I’d been going by the Cornell guidelines – but also means I get to make a print from some truly bizarre ideas of assisted childbirth from the 1960s. This is an utterly horrifying case in point where a more recent third party work is still public domain by donation to government for patent use where no specific in-document copyright or trademark exists.

This means I get to browse said trove and discover things that absolutely, positively must be satirized in a modern context right now.

No. Spinning the human trying to give birth is NOT a good plan, and the baby catch basket/net assembly is as ill conceived a notion as I’ve run across in ages.

So I think it’s time to do up prints of the design, censor it slightly on facebook – a patent image set with nipples might threaten decency somehow in a way spinning the ever-loving baby out of someone won’t – and label it in a period typeface: The Patriarcher, 1963.

Yep. That’s my evening in a nutshell.

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