CCIA, EFF Urge 4th Circuit to Affirm SAS v. WPL Software Copyright Ruling

infringe the copyright on SAS Institute’s software. A federal jury awarded SAS more than $79 million in damages after deciding WPL engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices by reverse engineering SAS’ software. Judge Louise Flanagan issued a summary judgment that WPL hadn't violated the copyright on SAS’ software because WPL only reverse engineered the SAS software’s functionality. CCIA and EFF argued that affirmance of the court decision would help maintain the precedent that copyright doesn’t protect interfaces needed for interoperability. “A company that exercised proprietary control over its products’ interfaces could dictate which products made by other firms -- if any -- could interoperate with its software,” CCIA said. “This would extend statutory rights far beyond what is necessary to protect the original expressive elements to which copyright has traditionally attached. It would also override limitations on copyright crafted to protect the public good.” The Internet Association and Engine also signed onto CCIA’s brief. Circuit courts have for decades said Copyright Act Section 102 “does not cover the processes, systems, and methods of operation that [a programmer’s source] code may employ to interface with other software,” EFF said in its brief (in Pacer). “If SAS’s view had been accepted at the birth of modern computing, many important technologies would never have existed or succeeded.”