The European Court of Justice has been asked to consider a copyright infringement
case by the High Court in England in which both the software companies in dispute
are claiming victory.
In the case, business software provider SAS alleged that World Programming
Ltd (WPL) violated several SAS copyrights by copying SAS manuals and source
code. According to SAS, the court found that the manual for WPL’s World
Programming System (WPS) software infringed the copyright in the SAS manuals,
but in order to resolve the question of whether the WPS software itself infringed
SAS copyrights, the court has referred several questions of copyright law to
the ECJ.
The court also found that WPL acted outside the scope of its license agreement
for SAS Learning Edition software by using that product to develop WPL’s
World Programming System (WPS) software.
WPL, however, issued a statement following the High Court decision claiming
that it had secured "a major legal victory" and that the judge, Mr.
Justice Arnold, rejected SAS's claim that WPL's drop in 'clone' of the SAS System
infringes the copyright in the SAS system or the copyright in SAS's manuals.
WPL also believes that European law protected it from breach of SAS's licence
terms where WPL used the SAS Learning Edition to observe, study and test its
programming functions when it developed WPS.
"Following previous UK case law and the EU Software Directive, the judgment
reasoned that copyright protects the source code of the SAS system as a literary
work which WPL had not copied and that replicating the functions of software,
however complex and at whatever level of detail, is not an infringement of copyright,"
WPL stated following the High Court decision.
Oliver Robinson of WPL said that the ruling "clearly established the validity
of WPS as a legitimate and lawful alternative to SAS." SAS General Counsel
John Boswell, however, found WPL's version of events "surprising."
Boswell said: “WPL issued a press release contending that they ‘secured
a major legal victory’ in this case. This announcement was surprising
in that the decisions the court handed down were related to the violation of
SAS’ copyright on its manuals. Other decisions have not been made. They
raise uncertain questions of law and have therefore been referred to the ECJ.
We feel compelled to address the inaccuracies in the news release issued by
WPL.”
The companies may have to wait up to three years before the ECJ issues a clarification
of the case, after which it will be handed back to the High Court.
LAWANDTAX-NEWS.COM
