The Copyright Office has announced that as of April 24, 1995, it will no longer require applicants seeking to obtain copyright protection to elect between obtaining a copyright registration or a design patent for useful pictorial, graphic or sculptural expressions. In support of its policy requiring an election between these two forms of protection, the Copyright Office had relied on a 1929 case, Korzbski v. Underwood & Underwood Inc., which held that an "inventor who has applied for and obtained a patent cannot extend his monopoly by taking out a copyright."

In reversing its prior policy, the Copyright Office noted that the Patent and Trademark Office had ceased requiring election between a copyright registration and patent protection in 1974. The Copyright Office also stated that its policy had been criticized on the basis that there was no statutory justification for requiring an applicant to choose between the two forms of protection.