- Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. The idea itself may be protected through patents.
- "The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." (John Carmack)
- "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." (Noam Chomsky)
- "[Copyright] [r]egistration does offer some significant benefits [...]. But it is not required in order for you to mark your proprietary works of authorship with the appropriate notice. [Even] [t]he notice is not required in order to have protection. However, the notice [...] puts others on notice that you claim protection [of] a particular work. Once a party is on notice of your claim, they can be liable for wilful infringement and treble damages. Copyright in the US and most of the world is automatic upon fixation of an original work of authorship in a tangible medium of expression." (Robert B. Dellenbach)
- The case Oracle v. Google has been about copyright and patent claims, where Oracle argues that Google infringed by copying the Java API. In May 2012, a United States District Court decided that Google did not infringe. Judge William Haskell Alsup started learning Java solely for the purpose of getting a better understanding of the case. The Circuit Court then, however, reversed the decision in May 2014, finding that Google did infringe on Oracle's Java API. In October 2014, Google then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the copyright fight.