Preface
This brief note is not legal advice and is for educational purposes only.
Discussion
The USPTO now has New Group Registration Options for Short Online Literary Works denoted GRTX (Group Registration Trademark worksX). Basically:
- Under GRTX applicants may register a group of 2 to 50 short online literary works with one application and one filing fee. (As of 2020 the fee was $65.)
- To qualify as an online literary work, all the works in the group must first be published online as part of a website or online platform, such as an online newspaper, social media website, or social networking platform.
- The works must be first published online within three consecutive months.
- Each work must contain at least 50 but no more than 17,500 words.
- The works must be written by the same individual, or co-written by the same individuals, and each writer must be named as the copyright claimant or claimants for each work.
- The works in the group cannot be works made for hire.
- Each individual work must have a title and each title must be on the application.
- The applicant must include a title for the group as a whole.
- If the Office registers the claim, the registration will cover the text in each work as a separate work of authorship (i.e. a copyright owner may seek a separate award for each work infringed). The Copyright Office will prepare one certificate of registration for the entire group and assign one registration number to that certificate.
- One or more works in the group may contain text and other forms of authorship, such as artwork or photographs, but only the text can be registered using the GRTX option.
- These cannot be registered via GRTX. • if published in physical form prior to being published online • emails • podcasts • audiobooks • computer programs • compilations • collective works
Conclusion
In order for the USPTO to offer such a great deal the filing requirements are very strict so that the USPTO can highly automate the filing. Your attorney can handle these and the requirements of the Electronic Copyright Office (eCO).
The upload file cannot exceed 500MB in size.
Summary
Consult an attorney for more details as there are more restrictions for blogs with readers’ comments (Material Excluded and Limitation of Claim issues).
Also be aware that your attorney’s fees for filing the GRTX is going to be much more than the USPTO GRTX fees because there is a lot of very detailed work involved.
