An important part of the franchise system is the confidential operating manual. Many franchisors claim protection of operating manuals under the law of trade secrets and copyright.

Keeping the contents confidential is an important step in claiming trade secret rights. It is a good idea to include a confidentiality notice on the cover, near the front, and in a header or footer of each page, to keep track of each printed copy and restrict access to printed and online copies.

Copyright law protects original creative expression. A recent court decision demonstrated some limits of copyright protection. Civility Experts is in the business of teaching civility, etiquette and good manners, to children and others. It brought a lawsuit claiming contents of its manuals had been copied by Molly Manners, a Colorado company in the same business. The parties had previously settled a similar claim.

In the new lawsuit the court performed a meticulous comparison of the two companies' manuals, finding numerous places where Molly Manners copied from Civility Experts. But in every instance, the court ruled the copied material was so basic, or was the only way of saying something, that the original content that had been copied, was not protectable under copyright law. The court found copying but still rejected Civility Experts' claim.

In the earlier litigation Molly Manners had entered into a settlement agreement, promising not to copy Civility Experts material. Based on the earlier agreement, the court said Civility Experts might have a claim for breach of contract. In view of this potential claim, the later dispute was also settled.

The Civility Experts case presents a valuable lesson for franchisors. Try to develop creative, original content in the operating manual, instruction manuals and other materials, so that these will be protectable under copyright law as well as trade secret law.

One further caveat. To register a copyright, a work must be filed with the U.S. Copyright Office. That makes the work public, which prevents trade secret protection. To protect a confidential manual, it is essential to use the Copyright Office's special handling procedure, which allows the applicant to file and obtain a registration, while preserving the claim of confidentiality and trade secrecy for a manual.

Civility Experts Worldwide v. Molly Manners, LLC, 167 F.Supp.3d 1179 (D. Col. Mar. 7, 2016)