No. 32
ORAL DELIVERY OPINIONS CONCERNING REGISTRABILITY
Occasionally members of the public seek oral advice concerning the registrability of their works in advance of filing an application for registration. Such opinions are ordinarily solicited in the course of a visit to the Public Information Office of the Copyright Office. As a general rule, unless registration is unquestionably impossible, we will advise that an application should be filed to enable us to give the case thorough consideration. Usually visitors are seen by Section Heads, Assistant Section Heads, or Senior Examiners. These persons should refrain from giving opinions either for or against registration and should not commit the Office to a certain course of action, particularly where registrablity is unclear or doubtful for any reason.
Occasionally, the visitor may inadvertently bypass the Public Information Office and may come directly to the Division work area for oral opinions. Such visitors should be referred to the appropriate Section Head, Assistant Section Bead or a Senior Examiner and the above policy concerning visits to the Public Information Office should be followed. Examiners other than Senior Examiners should not discuss the registrabliity of a work, nor take any other action with respect to it, before an application has been filed for registration of the clam to copyright. For this purpose an application is not considered to have been filed until it has been deposited in the custody of authorized personnel in the Service Division or in the Public Information Office. Examining Division personnel should ask members of the public to take applications to the Public Information Office for filing.
