Patent

An invention, being a creative work the gist of which is more important than the particular articulation (that is, it is not suitable for protection by copyright), which the inventor has protected by filing a patent application. It is a form of intellectual property right attaching to a concept rather than an articulation.

To wit: ISDA may claim copyright in the ISDA Master Agreement (illegitimately, in the JC’s view, but that is another story) and — to the extent you accept its fanciful claim — that might stop on reproducing the actual text of the ISDA Master Agreement itself, but it does not stop some waggish fellow writing a hyperlinked, plain English version of the same thing. For that one would need a patent.

Patents require full publication of all the design specifications of the product, and expire totally after 15 years, whereupon the design enters the public domain and my be used freely by anyone. Thus, even if the 2002 ISDA had been patented, the patent would have expired by now and the JC could still publish its plain English version). Copyright lasts for seventy five (or more, depending on which impoverished publisher has most recently chucked a bung toward Congress) years after the author’s death. So if you want to rip off the JC’s plain English ISDA — which really is a creative work deserving of protection by copyright — beware the litigatory hounds of hell that the JC shall set upon you.