Can/should one put a copyright notice on one's CV or resume? Why/why not?

While your CV can technically be regarded as a piece of intellectual property, the usual reason why people assert their copyright to a work by putting a copyright notice on it is to deter and prevent other people from copying or sharing that work (usually so they - the authors - can profit by selling the work).

With your CV, it is actually in your interest to have as many people as possible sharing it and passing it around, so the incentives work completely in the opposite direction from a more traditional type of intellectual product.

Now, if your CV is such an amazing piece of work that people will be willing to pay for a copy, we’d be having a different discussion...


  1. In the US, copyright notices have not been required for decades. So there is no benefit.

  2. It isn't done and will be perceived as strange. Since the purpose of your resume is to help you, don't do things like this.


Copyright generally protects the content/text/copy and not the layout. If you believe your layout is so novel, you could try patenting it, but I doubt that will be successful (and you probably should not be using something so novel for a CV unless you are a graphic designer).

In response to comments, according to this document from the US Copyright Office the layout of a document is not copyrightable.

As a general rule, the Office will not accept a claim to copyright in “format” or “layout.” The general layout or format of a book, page, book cover, slide presentation, web page, poster, or form is uncopyrightable because it is a template for expression.

You might try and claim the CV layout is like a blank form, but those are also not copyrightable

Blank forms that are designed for recording information and do not themselves convey information are uncopyrightable.

Even the content of the CV is probably not copyrightable

To be copyrightable, a work must qualify as an original work of authorship, meaning that it must have been created independently and contain a sufficient amount of creativity.

since a CV is generally just a list of facts and the text is not really creative.

The combination of the text and layout might satisfy the requirement for copyright and potentially entitle you to damages if someone copied your CV, but it would not provide protection from someone using your CV as a template and replacing your accomplishments with theirs and likely would not protect you from them taking your accomplishments and reformatting them.

As for weather a patent would be appropriate, I think it would fall under a design patent

A design patent protects only the appearance of the article and not structural or utilitarian features.

where the layout is the design and the article is the content of the CV. As I said above, this is probably a huge stretch.

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