Fergie's Tech Blog

28 June 1990: Paperback Software Found Guilty of Lotus 1-2-3 Copyright Infringement

On June 28, 1990, a federal court judge in Boston made public his decision in favor of Lotus Development Corporation in its software copyright lawsuit against Paperback Software.

People in the software industry had been waiting for this decision since the lawsuit was first filed in January 1987, certain that it would be a landmark case and would resolve many vexing questions about copyright protection for user interfaces.

The trade press has abounded with varying interpretations of Judge Keeton's opinion in the Lotus case: Some have said the decision is a narrow one, making illegal only the direct copying of another firm's interface; Some have seen it has a much broader ruling--one that will have a chilling effect on development of competitive software products; Others have asserted the case draws a reasonable line, and will have a positive effect overall; Several have argued the ruling will be harmful because it ignores the interests of users of software, and will make standardization of user interfaces impossible to achieve. Still others perceive the opinion as only setting the stage for a new confrontation over the issues in the appellate courts.

Lotus has given some indication of how broadly it interprets the Paperback decision by filing a new round of user interface copyright lawsuits against two of its other spreadsheet competitors.

posted by Fergie @ 6/27/2006 10:01:00 PM