Opinion ID: 195601
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Validity of Copyright Registration

Text: 29 During the trial, it became evident that DG had made several errors in registering its ADEX copyrights. After Edward Gove, a DG official, testified that DG had deposited with the Copyright Office the correct excerpts of human-readable source code, 14 Grumman introduced evidence that there were some errors in the deposits for the first three versions of ADEX. In rebuttal testimony, Gove confirmed that there were a number of minor, inadvertent errors in the deposits that would not affect the operation of the programs. 15 30 Grumman argued to the district court that any error in a copyright deposit renders the registration invalid, and requested that the court so instruct the jury. The district court refused, instructing the jury instead that minor, inadvertent errors in the deposit of excerpts of computer code do not threaten the validity of the copyright registration. As a fall-back tactic, Grumman renewed its previous request that the district court compel DG to produce the entire human-readable source code for each version of ADEX so that Grumman could more effectively cross-examine Gove about the significance of the errors. The district court refused to do so, and later explained its discretionary decision by finding that Grumman had an adequate opportunity to explore the errors contained in the initial copyright deposits, to challenge Data General's explanation of those errors, and to argue these issues before the jury. Grumman VI, 825 F.Supp. at 352. Using a special verdict form, the jury found that DG had properly registered each of the ADEX copyrights. 31