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In one case a court found that a defendant had infringed the right to prepare a derivative work when they copied the sequence, structure, and organization of the plaintiff's file formats, screen, reports, and transaction codes, even though different data fields were present.{{sfn|Stapleton|2002|p=9.6}}
In 1987 the ruling in Broderbund Software, Inc v. Unison World, Inc appeared to prevent software developers from marketing products with the same or similar user interfaces, regardless of whether there were anything in common in the underlying code.{{sfn|Kappel|1991|p=705}}
In the 1990 case of Lotus v. Paperback the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts decided that Paperback's VP-Planner software violated the copyright of Lotus's 1-2-3 spreadsheet program since it had the same user interface, even though the underlying code was completely different.{{sfn|Davidson|1997|p=115}}
The Whelan ruling has been criticized as being "dangerously broad".
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In Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc. in 1992 the Second Circuit found that program structure was worthy of protection, but went on to say:{{sfn|Hamilton|Sabety|1997|p=250}}
{{blockquote|As we have already noted, a computer program's ultimate function or purpose is the composite result of interacting subroutines. Since each Subroutine is itself a program, and thus, may be said to have its own "idea," Whelan's general formulation that a program's overall Purpose equates with the program's idea is descriptively inadequate.}}
The Second Circuit introduced the three-step [[Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test]], and several other circuits later adopted this test. In the abstraction step the court identifies all similarites. In the filtration step any legitimate similarities are discarded.{{sfn|Abramson|2001|pp=49-50}}
Elements removed in this step In the comparison step the court decides whether there is The Altai case may have gone too far, in effect removing protection from all but the literal elements of a program and thus leading to underprotection.
Aware of this risk, many courts that followed the Altai ruling seem to have in practice performed less filtration than was required by the test.{{sfn|Abramson|2001|p=57}}
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|publisher=Boston University
|accessdate=2012-05-31}}
*{{cite book |ref=harv |url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=pUfFpzC3ks4C&pg=PA115
|title=Intellectual Property for the Internet
|first=J. Scott |last=Davidson
|publisher=Aspen Publishers Online |year=1997
|ISBN=0471167037}}
*{{cite journal |ref=harv |url=http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v10/10HarvJLTech239.pdf
|journal=Harvard Journal of Law & Technology
| |||