[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 37, Volume 1]
[Revised as of July 1, 1999]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 37CFR201.7]
[Page 348-349]
TITLE 37--PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, AND COPYRIGHTS
CONGRESS
PART 201--GENERAL PROVISIONS--Table of Contents
Sec. 201.7 Cancellation of completed registrations.
(a) Definition. Cancellation is an action taken by the Copyright
Office whereby either the registration is eliminated on the ground that
the registration is invalid under the applicable law and regulations, or
the registration number is eliminated and a new registration is made
under a different class and number.
(b) General policy. The Copyright Office will cancel a completed
registration only in those cases where:
(1) It is clear that no registration should have been made because
the work does not constitute copyrightable subject matter or fails to
satisfy the other legal and formal requirements for obtaining copyright;
(2) Registration may be authorized but the application, deposit
material, or fee does not meet the requirements of the law and Copyright
Office regulations, and the Office is unable to get the defect
corrected; or
(3) An existing registration in the wrong class is to be replaced by
a new registration in the correct class.
(c) Circumstances under which a registration will be cancelled. (1)
Where the Copyright Office becomes aware after registration that a work
is not copyrightable, either because the authorship is de minimis or the
work does not contain authorship subject to copyright, the registration
will be cancelled. The copyright claimant will be notified by
correspondence of the proposed cancellation and the reasons therefor,
and be given 30 days, from the date the Copyright Office letter is
mailed, to show cause in writing why the cancellation should not be
made. If the claimant fails to respond within the 30 day period, or if
the Office after considering the response, determines that the
registration was made in error and not in accordance with title 17
U.S.C., Chapters 1 through 8, the registration will be cancelled.
(2) When a check received in payment of a registration fee is
returned to the Copyright Office marked ``insufficient funds'' or is
otherwise uncollectible the Copyright Office will immediately cancel any
registration(s) for which the dishonored check was submitted and will
notify the remitter the registration has been cancelled because the
check was returned as uncollectible.
(3) Where registration is made in the wrong class, the Copyright
Office will cancel the first registration, replace it with a new
registration in the correct class, and issue a corrected certificate.
(4) Where registration has been made for a work which appears to be
copyrightable but after registration the Copyright Office becomes aware
that, on the administrative record before the Office, the statutory
requirements have apparently not been satisfied, or
[[Page 349]]
that information essential to registration has been omitted entirely
from the application or is questionable, or correct deposit material has
not been deposited, the Office will correspond with the copyright
claimant in an attempt to secure the required information or deposit
material or to clarify the information previously given on the
application. If the Copyright Office receives no reply to its
correspondence within 30 days of the date the letter is mailed, or the
response does not resolve the substantive defect, the registration will
be cancelled. The correspondence will include the reason for the
cancellation. The following are instances where a completed registration
will be cancelled unless the substantive defect in the registration can
be cured:
(i) Eligibility for registration has not been established;
(ii) A work published before March 1, 1989, was registered more than
5 years after the date of first publication and the deposit copy or
phonorecord does not contain a statutory copyright notice;
(iii) The deposit copies or phonorecords of a work published before
January 1, 1978 do not contain a copyright notice or the notice is
defective;
(iv) A renewal claim was registered after the statutory time limits
for registration had apparently expired;
(v) The application and copy(s) or phonorecord(s) do not match each
other and the Office cannot locate a copy or phonorecord as described in
the application elsewhere in the Copyright Office or the Library of
Congress;
(vi) The application for registration does not identify a copyright
claimant or it appears from the transfer statement on the application or
elsewhere that the ``claimant'' named in the application does not have
the right to claim copyright;
(vii) A claim to copyright is based on material added to a
preexisting work and a reading of the application in its totality
indicates that there is no copyrightable new material on which to base a
claim;
(viii) A work subject to the manufacturing provisions of the Act of
1909 was apparently published in violation of those provisions;
(ix) For a work published after January 1, 1978 the only claimant
given on the application was deceased on the date the application was
certified;
(x) A work is not anonymous or pseudonymous and statements on the
application and/or copy vary so much that the author cannot be
identified; and
(xi) Statements on the application conflict or are so unclear that
the claimant cannot be adequately identified.
(d) Minor substantive errors. Where a registration includes minor
substantive errors or omissions which would generally have been
rectified before registration, the Copyright Office will attempt to
rectify the error through correspondence with the remitter. Except in
those cases enumerated in paragraph (c) of this section, if the Office
is unable for any reason to obtain the correct information or deposit
copy the registration record will be annotated to state the nature of
the informality and show that the Copyright Office attempted to correct
the registration.
[50 FR 40835, Oct. 7, 1985, as amended at 60 FR 34168, June 30, 1995]