the same plan, arrangement, and combination of materials have been
used before for the same purpose or for any other purpose. If they
have not, then the plaintiff is entitled to a copy-right, although he may
have gathered hints for his plan and arrangement, or parts of his plan
and arrangement, from existing and known sources. He may have
borrowed much of his materials from others, but if they are combined
in a different manner from what was in use before… he is entitled to a
copy-right … It is true, that he does not thereby acquire the right to
appropriate to himself the materials which were common to all persons
before, so as to exclude those persons from a future use of such
materials; but then they have no right to use such materials with his
improvements superadded, whether they consist in plan, arrangement
or illustrations, or combinations; for these are strictly his own.‟
It is therefore possible to create a personal copyright from preexisting materials
provided what is created is different from what has been was in use before.
Furthermore in the case of British Northrop Ltd v Texteam Blackburn Ltd [1974] RPC
57 at 68 the principle was conveniently summarised by Megarry J as follows:
„Copyright is concerned not with any originality of ideas but with
their form of expression, and it is in that expression that originality
is requisite. That expression need not be original or novel in form,
but it must originate with the author and not be copied from
another work … A drawing which is simply traced from another
drawing is not an original artistic work: a drawing which is made
without any copying from anything originates with the artist.‟
It can therefore be said that copyright protection extends to expressions and not ideas.
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