As patents are expensive and difficult to register at the best of times why would you spend that kind of money to register something as either a copyright or patent which is a not-for-profit undertaking. Most patents are for processes or for tangible products--sometimes for hybrid species or gene sequences or protein combinations. How would a list fit into any of these categories? As for copyrights, how would you limit what you already share with all of your members as a trade mark? Neither case seems applicable to lists, although you could register the name and a logo so that nobody else could use it, but this is still a costly undertaking with no particular reward. You would do better to save your money for something you want to really patent like virtual reality viewing devices, optical architectures or genetic sequences. Best regards, Paul. -- Dr. Paul S. di Virgilio, University of Toronto [log in to unmask]