Clarifying what a "pattern interpretation" is becomes an important concept. When anyone interprets a pattern from the Japanese books (or any book or other published source, for that matter) - you own the intellectual property of your interpretation and that is protected by Copyright. Interpretation means the concept and manner in which the content is presented: your words, your photos, the diagrams you create to illustrate, etc., and that presentation becomes copyrighted from the time you write it down or otherwise "fix it in media". You do not own the originating pattern that you interpreted, since that pattern came from another source. Other people may choose to interpret, write up and illustrate that same pattern as well, as long as they use their own words, photos, drawings, diagrams etc.  They cannot simply cut, photocopy, copy and paste other people's work into a new page and call it theirs (that is plagerism and against the law). It's just like writing those term papers or reports in school  - you search out your information in the library, read and learn, then write it up in your own words, and include the bibliography of where you got your information. Many other people wrote papers on the same subject, and used the same references, but each person wrote their papers in their own words, interpreting the information learned while researching the subject.  Therefore, it is perfectly possible and indeed likely that more than one person can and will interpret the same pattern from a Japanese book or other published source - and each person, with doing their own text writing and diagram/photo preparation is entitled to present and copyright their creative interpretation, as long as the original Japanese or other interpreted presentations are not duplicated.

        This topic was discussed on TalkTemari, and in reply to my sharing the above information, one of our members who is a law student (Berkeley) replied in part as follows (Anastasia clearly reminded everyone that she is a student of the law and not yet admitted to the Bar): "Ginny is right about not owning a pattern you interpret. The design is still someone else's creation, and even though you put work into translating or interpreting, the design itself is not the product of your own creative spark, so you cannot claim legal ownership of it. Instructions & diagrams are a sticky issue in intellectual property law. Copyright protection extends only to the ways in which we express an idea - it does not confer ownership of the idea itself. Needless to say, there is a big gray area here where it is hard to tell what is and idea and what is an expression of an idea.... The big problem with copyright of patterns, instructions, diagrams, etc, is this: when there are a very limited number of ways in which an idea can be expressed (as is often the case with diagrams & instructions), sometimes courts will find that the expression and the idea fuse together, so that ownership of the expression would mean ownership of the idea itself.... Since this is an unpredictable area of law even for lawyers, laypersons should be particularly careful. if you are planning on using someone else's pattern for any purpose other than personal use, always check with them for their permission.....  please do not interpret what I have written as professional advice but  I hope it does help explain why Ginny is always urging us to be careful about our use of other people's work...".