Legal Definitions - level of abstraction

Definition: The level of abstraction refers to the degree to which a work describes an idea or process in a general rather than concrete way.

For example, a painting of a flower is a concrete representation of the flower, while a poem about the beauty of a flower is a more abstract representation of the same idea.

Judge Learned Hand once said that any work can be restated in more and more abstract ways, omitting more and more details, until one is left with an uncopyrightable idea rather than a protectable work of originality. This means that the more abstract a work is, the less likely it is to be protected by copyright law.

Another example of level of abstraction can be seen in scientific theories. A concrete example of a scientific theory might be the laws of motion, while a more abstract representation of the same idea might be Einstein's theory of relativity.