SAS Institute lawsuit with World Programming: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:16, 15 February 2012

Revision as of 06:27, 16 February 2012

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* First, it confirms what WPL has always admitted, namely that it has used the SAS Manuals to emulate functionality of the SAS System in WPS. Secondly, it shows that to some extent WPL has reproduced aspects of the SAS Manuals going beyond that which was strictly necessary in order for WPS to emulate the functions of the SAS System. What it does not show is reproduction of the SAS source code by WPS going beyond the reproduction of its functionality.

* WPL's manual writers did not copy directly from the SAS Manuals in the sense of having one of the SAS Manuals open in front of them when writing the WPS Manual and intentionally either transcribing or paraphrasing the wording. A considerable degree of similarity in both content and language between the SAS Manual entries and the WPS Manual entries is to be expected given that they are describing identical functionality. The degree of resemblance in the language goes beyond that which is attributable to describing identical functionality.

== Further Appeal ==

The above judgement was appealed to European Court of Justice. Advocate-General Yves Bot of the European Court of Justice handed down his opinion in SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Limited on 29 November 2011.

The summary clearly stated-

Article 1(2) of Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs is to be interpreted as meaning that the functionalities of a computer program and the programming language are not eligible, as such, for copyright protection.

The full judgement can be read at

*[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130de82a77d2247f54418827c974b27e0ac40.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4NchmOe0?docid=115484&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&cid=14287 ECIS Judgement on the Case]

== External links ==