Wikipedia:School and university projects/Open Source Culture/Patent Scope

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As the article's title indicates, Cohen and Lemley explore the scope of patent law within the framework of the software industry. Whereas one does not readily associate "open source culture" with patent law (rather with copyright law), in the case of reverse engineering, it seems patent law provides the highest hurdle. Courts have generally ruled that reverse engineering is protected as fair use within copyright law (the source code would be the copyrighted material; if the source code is not directly copied but is deduced through reverse enineering, there is no copyright infringement). However, as software is increasingly being patented, the question of the legality of reverse engineering is raised again. As there is no "fair use' provision within patent law, Cohen and Lemley explore the options.

The Sega and Atari cases, posted in the Mediography under "Transcripts and Recordings," were two of the early cases where reverse engineering was held not to infringe copyright because of fair use.