Structure, sequence and organization: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:49, 13 May 2014

Revision as of 18:02, 20 May 2014

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==Early adoption and criticism==

For the next few years most, but not all, circuit courts accepted the ''Whelan'' decision on SSO in one form or another.{{sfn|Kappel|1991|p=705}} This resulted in a a period of tight protection for software, since almost everything other than the broad purpose of a software work would be protected. The only exception was where the functionality could only be achieved in a very small number of ways. In these cases there could be no protection due to the [[Merger doctrine (copyright law)|merger doctrine]], which applies when the expression and the idea are inextricably merged.{{sfn|Abramson|2001|p=57}}

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}}