Page:Compendium of US Copyright Office Practices (1973).pdf/167

4.2.4

Year date.(cont'd)

IV.

Variance between notice and application(Cont'd)

b.

Date in notice earlier than date of publication. Where the date in the notice is earlier than the date of publication (that is, apparently an antedated notice):

1.

General rule: Where there is nothing in the application, copies, or correspondence to in­ dicate that the work, or a substantial part of it, has been previously published or registered in unpublished form, the claim should be entered without searching or preliminary correspondence. Both the application and the certificate should be annotated to reflect the date in the notice, and a warning letter should be sent.

2.

Previous publication or registration indicated. Where something on the application, in the notice, on the copies, or elsewhere in the correspondence file indicates that the work, or a substantial part of it, has been previously published or reg­istered in unpublished form, the Office should search or correspond to determine the date of the earlier publication or unpublished registration, and whether or not the present copies contain new copyrightable matter. (No search or correspondence is necessary if these facts are shown on the face of the application.)

(a)

If an earlier publication for the work (other than foreign publication for an English-language book registered ad interim) is found, and-there is no reason to suppose that the present copies contain new copyrightable matter, the claim should be re­jected as a reprint.

(b)

If unpublished registration (or foreign pub­lication for an English-language book registered ad interim) took place in the year shown in the notice, and if there is no reason to suppose that the present copies contain new copyrightable matter, the claim should be entered without correspondence and without any annotation referring to the data in the notice. However, if the fact of earlier registration does not already appear on the application, an annotation referring to the earlier entry should be added; for example: "Reg'd EU-123456, July 6, 1957."