'The Magic of Houdini' book (p.36) describes a copy state accessible thru the viewport by pressing TAB key. I could not find one in H9.1?
ctrl-c/ctrl-v is working, though.

no mention of copy on p36 - do you mean p34?

it's just the Copy SOP
in the viewport > TAB > copy

there is this tutorial showing it's use:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=750&Itemid=241 [sidefx.com]

HTH

There is only ‘copy to points’ option. But when I tried using it, it did not create a new node in the network pane. I will try it again tonight.

To get the same behaviour at the object level in H9, select your object and press the duplicate tool in the shelf (or press tab > duplicate). It will create a second object in the same location. We used Duplicate to help differentiate it from the copy to points tool which does something very different.

Thanks Robert!