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> Looking briefly at the copyright laws on the U.S. copyright office
> website, code snippets might fall under:
> "102 (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of
> authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of
> operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in
> which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such
> work."

The meaning of this statement is that copyright law does not protect what is
being expressed.  Copyright law only applies to the expression itself.  This
is why "clean room" implementations are done.

In short form...

Copyright your code, *patent your algorithm*, and trademark your UI.


Note: *patent your algorithm* is an oversimplification as, IIRC, you cannot
(under US patent law) patent an algorithm -- i.e. process.  Instead you
patent the application of that process to some problem/market.