Isn’t that the Same Thing?

While looking at the initial title to this article (link) it appeared to be the same thing to me as Spotify.  Although it isn’t there are many cases where products are extremely similar  to other products.  But at what point does copyright protect products and services from being copied?  For example, generic pharmaceuticals are the exact same thing as the original drugs only with a different name.  They also undercut the market for the drug by offering lower prices.  I know the ruling on drugs is that generics have to wait a certain number of years before producing the copy of the original product.  Although I am familiar with this business I wonder what the policy is for other products such as computer programs.  The search engines such as Google, Ask Jeeves and others are very similar but how different do they have to be to pass the copyright laws.  Is it one feature that can be different or does the name just have to be different for it to be legal?

One thought on “Isn’t that the Same Thing?

  1. Shannon Moran Post author

    That’s a really interesting question, actually. I’d love to know what the legalities are behind some of those things. Perhaps it’s different with Google because they are companies providing a service, rather than patenting or selling anything specifically?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *