| Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International, Inc. | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued January 8, 1996 Decided January 16, 1996 |
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| Full case name | Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International, Inc. | |||||
| Citations | 516 U.S. 233 (more) 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995), aff'd, 516 U.S. 233, 116 S. Ct. 804; 133 L. Ed. 2d 610 (1996). |
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| Prior history | Lotus claimed copyright infringement by Borland's Quattro Pro product. The district court ruled for Lotus, but this decision was reversed on appeal, finding that the allegedly infringing features of Quattro Pro were a "method of operation" not subject to copyright. Lotus petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which was granted; however, because of a split opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed. | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The appeals court's decision was affirmed. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Per curiam. | ||||||
| Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | ||||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| 17 U.S.C. section 102(b) | ||||||
Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International, Inc., 516 U.S. 233 (1996), is a United States Supreme Court case that tested the extent of software copyright. This case established that copyright does not extend to the text or layout of a program's menus.
Contents |
Borland released a spreadsheet product, Quattro Pro, that had a compatibility mode in which its menu imitated that of Lotus 1-2-3, a competing product. None of the source code or machine code that generated the menus was copied, but the names of the commands and the organization of those commands into a hierarchy were virtually identical.
Quattro Pro also contained a feature called "Key Reader," which allowed it to execute Lotus 1-2-3 keyboard macros. In order to support this feature, Quattro Pro's code contained a copy of Lotus's menu hierarchy in which each command was represented by its first letter instead of its entire name.
Lotus filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on July 2, 1990, claiming that the structure of the menus was Lotus's copyrighted intellectual property. The district court ruled that Borland had infringed Lotus' copyright. The ruling was based in part on the fact that an alternative satisfactory menu structure could be designed. For example, the "Quit" command could be changed to "Exit."[1]
Borland immediately removed the Lotus-based menu system from Quattro Pro, but retained support for its "Key Reader" feature, and Lotus filed a supplemental claim against this feature. A district court held that this also constituted copyright infringement.
Borland appealed the decision of the district court. It argued that the menu hierarchy is a "method of operation," which is not copyrightable according to 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the district court's decision, agreeing with Borland's legal theory that considered the menu hierarchy a "method of operation." The court agreed with the district court that an alternative menu hierarchy could be devised, but argued that despite this, the menu hierarchy is an uncopyrightable "method of operation."[2]
The court made an analogy between the menu hierarchy and the arrangement of buttons on a VCR. The buttons are used to control the playback of a video tape, just as the menu commands are used to control the operations of Lotus 1-2-3. Since the buttons are essential to operating the VCR, their layout cannot be copyrighted. Likewise, the menu commands, including the textual labels and the hierarchical layout, are essential to operating Lotus 1-2-3.[3]
The court also considered the impact of their decision on users of software. If menu hierarchies were copyrightable, users would be required to learn how to perform the same operation in a different way for every program, which the court finds "absurd." Additionally, all macros would have to be re-written for each different program, which places an undue burden on users.[4]
Michael Boudin wrote a concurring opinion for this case. In this opinion, he discusses the costs and benefits of copyright protection, as well as the potential similarity of software copyright protection to patent protection. He argues that software is different from creative works, which makes it difficult to apply copyright law to software.
His opinion also considers the theory that Borland's use of the Lotus menu is "privileged." That is, because Borland copied the menu for a legitimate purpose of compatibility, its use should be allowed. This decision, if issued by the majority of the court, would have been narrower in scope than the "method of operations" decision. Copying a menu hierarchy would be allowed in some circumstances, and disallowed in others.[5]
Lotus petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court's opinion in a 4-4 anonymous tie vote, with Justice Stevens recusing.[6] Lotus's petition for a rehearing by the full court was denied. By the time the lawsuit ended, Borland had sold Quattro Pro to Novell, and Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet had emerged as the main challenger to Lotus 1-2-3.
The Lotus decision establishes a distinction in copyright law between the interface of a software product and its implementation. The implementation is subject to copyright. The public interface may also be subject to copyright to the extent that it contains expression (for example, the appearance of an icon). However, the set of available operations and the mechanics of how they are activated are not copyrightable. This standard allows software developers to create original clones of copyrighted software products without infringing the copyright.
Borland was represented in the lawsuit by Gary Reback, an attorney with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and by David Hayes, a copyright expert with Fenwick & West LLP. Intel, Digital Equipment Corporation, Xerox, and the Gates Rubber Company filed amicus curiae briefs in support of Lotus.