Code Format Legal Question

BlitzPlus Forums/BlitzPlus Programming/Code Format Legal Question

TwiNoc (Posted 2005) [#1]

I'm not sure where to post this topic/question. The other day I was just thinking about some stuff and a question arose... Can the way a person formats their code be copyrighted or protected under some kind of intellectual property law? What I mean, can the way a person uses tabs or spaces, or any other kind of "whitespace", to organize their code be copyrighted? (The way in which they use that "whitespace") Could one of those types of formatting be protected under some kind of intellectual property law because it is how they set up their code? i.e. If I copied the way someone uses "whitespace", or someone copied the way I use "whitespace", could the person being copied tell the other person they aren't allowed to do that or that it is illegal? - Thanks! TwiNoc Note: If you don't understand the question please respond indicating that, I am not sure if I made myself very clear...

Arem (Posted 2005) [#2]

I understand. That would be like saying that someone could patent/copyright a list of ingredients that they leave off of a certain sub they get at Subway or Jersey Mikes. To make it short, no.

rdodson41 (Posted 2005) [#3]

Half the time no one would ever know unless you showed them the source code, because all they will really have is the compiled program. But anyway I don't think you could do that. Because there is probably hundreds of other programmers who use whitespace and format their code in the same way. The other question is Why would you want to do that?

WolRon (Posted 2005) [#4]

Microsoft has trademarked TODO comments in source code...

Grey Alien (Posted 2005) [#5]

This thread has more info in General Discussion.