You go first to http://www.copyright.gov, then click the link which says “Search Copyright Records”, which currently takes you to a Library of Congress site – https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First – then you type “Sanborn Herbert James” (no commas or quotes) in the box, select “Search by Name” in the box below, then “Begin Search”. This link https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Author&SA=Sanborn%2C%20Herbert%20James%2C%20Jr%2E%2C%201945%2D seems to take you directly to his page (at the moment!).

Anyway. Sanborn was discussing it in the context of lawyers:

“I had to compose several paragraphs, which they are called K1, K2, K3, and K4. That text written in English by me and also Howard Carter are the elements that are—K1, 2, 3 have already been deciphered. K4 has not been deciphered. It’s the plain text that I have copyright on. And the encoding system isn’t copyrightable. But it doesn’t matter because frankly, you know—anyway, since I have copyright on the plain text, then there is some proprietary owning of the text, which thank God, some part of it I can own and am able to control [01:20:00], so other interpreters don’t try to imply that my artwork means something that it does not. And that is a challenge.”

And I have no idea how you copyright plain text when you’ve only made the encrypted version public, or what that means. I know in some legal systems you can be an anonymous plaintiff, like in the Techno Viking case in Germany, but to explain what copyrighting an unknown plain text means or what effect it might have … we’d need a US copyright lawyer!

On the subject, Sanborn had a trademark from 2011 to 2018 that you can find in the TESS database. Probably more relevant than this are the TecSec patents on multi-layered encryption, key escrow etc.

Sculpture and artwork made of metal which contain encoded text relating to secrets and secrecy; sculpture and artwork made primarily of the metal in combination with granite, slate, quartz, petrified wood, and/or lodestone, which contains encoded text relating to secrets and secrecy.
FIRST USE: 19911101.
FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19911101
Serial Number 85076841
Filing Date July 2, 2010
Published for Opposition April 12, 2011
Registration Number 4077742
Registration Date December 27, 2011
Cancellation Date August 3, 2018