![]() ![]() These interfaces specify how the computer is supposed to operate-in response to inputs in a certain format, produce outputs that are arranged in a certain design. Instead, SAS claimed that WPL copied nonliteral, functional elements of its system: input formats (which say how a programmer should input data to a program to make the program work properly) and output designs (which the computer uses to let the programmer view the results correctly). It is undisputed that WPL didn’t copy SAS’s actual copyrighted code. The language was originally developed in the 1970s at a public university and dedicated to the public domain. The two companies have been feuding for years over SAS’s effort to effectively own the SAS Language, a high-level programming language used to write programs for conducting statistical analysis. In a decision last week, the Federal Circuit finally got something right about copyright, or at least the framework for deciding copyrightability of functional aspects of software. In a decision last week, the Federal Circuit finally got something right about copyright Unfortunately, the Court’s fair use decision left open the first issue, whether APIs are copyright-eligible in the first place. Fortunately, the Supreme Court stepped in and reversed the second opinion, finding fair use. The second reversed a jury’s determination that Google’s use of the Java APIs was a fair use. The first of those opinions held that the Java Application Program Interfaces (APIs) were eligible for copyright protection. Previously, the Federal Circuit failed miserably at solving that puzzle. It had issued two horrible computer copyright decisions in the long-running Oracle v. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit solved one piece of that puzzle, by approving a procedural framework for analyzing software copyright cases. ![]() As several judges have put it, “applying copyright law to computer programs is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces do not quite fit.” Last week, the U.S. Figuring out the correct boundaries of software copyright protection is a difficult task. ![]()
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