In the present case it was not suggested that any of the papers were copied. [The examiners]
proved that they had thought out the questions which they set, and that they made notes or
memoranda for future questions and drew on those notes for the purposes of questions which
they set. The papers which they prepared originated from themselves, and were, within the
meaning of the Act, original.It was said, however, that they drew upon the stock of knowledge common to mathematicians,
and that the time spent in producing the questions was small. These cannot be tests for
determining whether copyright exists. If an author, for purposes of copyright, must not draw on
the stock of knowledge which is common to himself and others who are students of the same
branch of learning, only those historians who discovered fresh historical facts could acquire
copyright for their works. If time expanded is to be the test, the rapidity of an author like Lord
Byron in producing a short poem might be an impediment in the way of acquiring copyright,
and, the completer his mastery of his subject, the smaller would be the prospect of the author’s
success in maintaining his claim to copyright. ...I suppose that most elementary books on mathematics may be said to be of a common type, but
that fact would not give impunity to a predatory infringer. ... [A]fter all, there remains the rough
practical test that what is worth copying is prima facieworth protecting.NOTES:- A serious question after the University of Londoncase is whether anything
much is “unoriginal” after it: does it protect virtually everything written down?
One school of thought thinks so. Thus, in Exxon Corp. v. Exxon Insurance
Consultants Ltd [1982] Ch. 119 (U.K.: High Court and Court of Appeal), the
oil company Exxon Corp. sued the defendant for passing off and infringing
copyright in the word “Exxon” by using that word as part of its corporate name.
The passing-off claim succeeded and an injunction issued against the
defendant’s use of the word in its name. On the copyright claim, the plaintiff
claimed that the word “Exxon” was “original”: its staff had dreamt up the word
themselves and the corporation had spent much time and money making sure
it was a good word to use all over the world as a trademark and trade name. If
university examiners could get copyright for their “creations”, why not Exxon?The English Court of Appeal agreed to a point. One judge said that “Exxon” was
“invented .. after research and testing to find a suitable word, apparently over a
period of more than a year. It is, therefore, difficult, if not impossible to say that
it is not original. It was invented and devised by and originated with the [Exxon
Corporation].”The Court nevertheless said that the word had no copyright. One judge, Lord
Justice Oliver, said:“[O]riginal literary work”, as used in the statute, is a composite expression, and for
my part I do not think that the right way to apply a composite expression is, or at any
rate is necessarily, to ascertain whether a particular subject matter falls within the
meaning of each of the constituent parts, and then to say that the whole expression is
merely the sum total of the constituent parts. In my judgment it is not necessary, in
construing a statutory expression, to take leave of one’s common sense... [T]hat for
which protection is sought in the instant case does not appear to me to have any of
the qualities which commonsense would demand.32