The cases are pretty different. The government isn&#x27;t generally creating copyrightable works with the hope of turning a profit on them. They&#x27;re creating them, e.g. as part of the mission of an agency. Think NASA photographs for example.<p>To be copyrightable, the work needs to exist in more or less final form. That&#x27;s what is copyrighted.<p>By contrast, while what&#x27;s patented goes beyond an idea, it may not be usable for anything until someone has spent significant money to commercialize it--and maybe not even then.