Sherlock Holmes, Zynga, Apple, Intel: Intellectual Property

For Jonathan Kirsch, a Los Angeles attorney, it’s elementary: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary works published before 1923 are in the public domain.

Kirsch and Scott Gilbert of Chicago’s Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP are seeking to have the federal court in Chicago declare that most of Doyle’s books and stories involving his most famous creation -- Sherlock Holmes -- are no longer protected by copyright law.