The
threshold of originality is a concept in
copyright law that is used to assess whether a particular work can be
copyrighted. It is used to distinguish works that are sufficiently
original to warrant copyright protection from those that are not. In this context, "originality" refers to "coming from someone as the originator/author" (insofar as it somehow reflects the author's personality), rather than "never having occurred or existed before" (which would amount to the protection of something new, as in patent protection).