Contentious Construction: Does Language Fit into Copyright's Mold?

AuthorJoshua L. Simmons - Megan L. McKeown
PositionJoshua L. Simmons is an intellectual property partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He represents clients in appellate and trial courts around the country?particularly in complex cases and those of first impression. He can be reached at joshua.simmons@kirkland.com. Megan L. McKeown is an intellectual property associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Her...
Pages46-51
Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 9, Number 6 , a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2017 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This
information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
Language can serve various purposes. For
some, it is merely the way humans
communicate with each other.
For others, it is a set of rules
on how to arrange words
to permit communica-
tion. And for a select
few, the creation of new
languages is an expres-
sive activity through which
ideas about language, both
human and computer, are
conveyed.
While U.S. copyright pro-
tection “subsists ... in original
works of authorship xed in any tan-
gible medium of expression,”1 academics
have debated whether constructed lan-
guages in general—languages that are invented
or intentionally devised2—and computer languages
in particular t naturally into the copyright system.3
On the one hand, commentators recognize that “[t]he
Contentious
Construction
By JoshuaL. Simmons and
MeganL. McKeown
JoshuaL. Simmons is an intellectual property
partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He
represents clients in appellate and trial
courts around the country—particularly
in complex cases and those of rst
impression. He can be reached at joshua.
simmons@kirkland.com. MeganL.
McKeown is an intellectual property
associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Her
practice focuses on litigation and counseling.
She can be reached at megan.mckeown@
kirkland.com.
Does Language Fit
into Copyright’s Mold?
Cover Story
Illustration: iStockPhoto

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