Opinion ID: 657247
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: literary works;

Text: 59 .... 60 (6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works; 61 .... 62 17 U.S.C. Sec. 102(a) (Supp.1993). 63 Computer programs are considered literary works for purposes of copyright analysis. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 101 states: 64 Literary works are works ... expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as ... film, tapes, disks, or cards, in which they are embodied. 65 .... 66 A computer program is a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result. 67 17 U.S.C. Sec. 101 (1977 and Supp.1993). Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, Inc., 975 F.2d 832, 838 (Fed.Cir.1992); H.R.Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 54, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5667 (The term literary works also includes computer data bases, and computer programs to the extent that they incorporate authorship in the programmer's expression of original ideas, as distinguished from the ideas themselves.). A computer program is protectable under copyright if two requirements are met: (1) it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, and (2) the program is original. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 102(a) (Supp.1993); M. Kramer Mfg. Co. v. Andrews, 783 F.2d 421, 433 (4th Cir.1986); H.R.Rep. No. 1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 512, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5659, 5664-65. 16 68 Much of the modern doctrine concerning the copyright of utilitarian works and the process-expression dichotomy owes its origins to the Supreme Court's opinion in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99, 25 L.Ed. 841 (1879), in which the Court considered the copyright of a book setting out a system of accounting. The Court held that neither the system itself nor the forms necessary to operate the system were protectable, although the author's particular expression of the system was protectable. 69 The copyright of a work on mathematical science cannot give to the author an exclusive right to the methods of operation which he propounds, or to the diagrams which he employs to explain them, so as to prevent an engineer from using them whenever occasion requires. The very object of publishing a book on science or the useful arts is to communicate to the world the useful knowledge which it contains. But this object would be frustrated if the knowledge could not be used without incurring the guilt of piracy of the book. And where the art it teaches cannot be used without employing the methods and diagrams used to illustrate the book, or such as are similar to them, such methods and diagrams are to be considered as necessary incidents to the art, and given therewith to the public; not given for the purpose of publication in other works explanatory of the art, but for the purpose of practical application. 70 Baker, 101 U.S. at 103. 71 One of the early attempts to apply the doctrine of copyright to computer programs came in Whelan Assoc. v. Jaslow Dental Laboratory, Inc., 797 F.2d 1222 (3d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1031, 107 S.Ct. 877, 93 L.Ed.2d 831 (1987). The Whelan court extended copyright protection to the structure, sequence and organization of a computer program even though the literal elements were not copied. 797 F.2d at 1248. Moreover, the Third Circuit attempted to establish a principle to distinguish between idea and expression. It concluded that: 72 [T]he line between idea and expression may be drawn with reference to the end sought to be achieved by the work in question. In other words, the purpose or function of a utilitarian work would be the work's idea, and everything that is not necessary to that purpose or function would be part of the expression of the idea. 73 797 F.2d at 1236 (emphasis omitted). 74 The Whelan court's articulation of this general rule for distinguishing idea from expression has been criticized extensively. 17 However, Whelan did use the limiting doctrines of merger and scenes a faire to restrict the scope of protection. In any event, when a program is understood to encompass more than one idea, the general principle of Whelan provides a useful means to distinguish idea from expression. At its base, Whelan is premised upon traditional principles of copyright law, and its conclusion that the structure of a program may be protectable is sound. 75 In Lotus Development Corp. v. Paperback Software International, 740 F.Supp. 37 (D.Mass.1990), Judge Keeton, who has written extensively on the subject of software protection, considered the copyright of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program. Like Whelan, the court concluded that the structure, sequence and organization of the software may be protectable. The Paperback court developed a three-part test that is a forerunner of the standard that we adopt in this case. 740 F.Supp. at 59-62. First, the court formulated a conception of the program's idea based on the various abstractions that it found to describe the program. 740 F.Supp. at 60. Second, the court separated out those expressions that it found to be essential to the ideas. Finally, the court determined whether the remaining expressions were a substantial part of the copyrighted work. 740 F.Supp. at 61, 70. 76 The Second Circuit in Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir.1992), built on the case law that proceeded it. The court agreed with Whelan and Paperback that copyright can protect the non-literal structures of computer programs. 982 F.2d at 702-703. In analyzing the similarity of the computer programs before it, the Altai court utilized a three-part test that bore some similarity to the three-part test in Paperback. The Altai court articulated its test as an Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test. Under the first prong the court dissected the program and identified the various levels of abstraction in the program. Altai, 982 F.2d at 707. Under the second prong, the court examined the separate elements within the program and eliminated those elements that it found to be either (1) ideas, (2) in the public domain, (3) required by factors external to the program, or (4) dictated by efficiency concerns such that the idea and expression were inseparable. Altai, 982 F.2d at 707-710. Those unprotectable elements were then filtered out before the two programs were compared. Finally, in the third prong, the court examined the remaining core of protectable expression to determine whether the defendant's program misappropriated substantial portions of the plaintiff's program. Altai, 982 F.2d at 710-711. We accept this basic three-part analysis and seek only to elaborate upon the various steps and to clarify the role of the abstraction test. We suggest that a court will often be assisted in determining the factual issue of copying if both programs are first compared in their entirety without filtering out the unprotected elements. Such a preliminary step does not obviate the ultimate need to compare just the protected elements of the copyrighted program with the alleged infringing program. However, an initial holistic comparison may reveal a pattern of copying that is not obvious when only certain components are examined. 77 The Supreme Court's most recent pronouncements in the area of copyright law came in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 111 S.Ct. 1282, 113 L.Ed.2d 358 (1991). Although Feist concerned the protectability of telephone directories rather than computer programs, the Court clarified several principles of copyright law applicable to the area of computers. The Court held that facts are not copyrightable regardless of the effort the author undertook to discover or compile them. In doing so the court rejected the sweat of the brow doctrine, which maintained that copyright was meant to protect and reward the efforts of an author. The court established that it is originality, not effort, that is the basis of copyright protection. However, the Court concluded that the original organization, selection, or arrangement in a work that is comprised exclusively of unprotectable facts could nevertheless be protected. 78 A panel of this circuit recently considered computer program copyright infringement in Autoskill, Inc. v. National Educational Support Systems, Inc., 994 F.2d 1476 (10th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 307, 126 L.Ed.2d 254 (1993). We upheld the grant of a preliminary injunction against the developers of a program designed to test and train individuals with reading deficiencies. Because the case involved a preliminary injunction, we only reviewed the district court's ruling to determine if the plaintiff had established a prima facie case with reasonable probability of success, and we expressly refrained from dictating a precise test for determining copyright infringement. Albeit, we affirmed the district court's application of the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test and application of the doctrines of merger, scenes a faire, and public domain. 79 We find in these and other cases that have considered the copyrightability of computer programs that there has begun to be developed a coherent approach to the protectability analysis. The approach that we outline today is consistent with this evolving approach to the copyright protection of computer programs. 80 C. Applying the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison Test to the Computer Programs at Issue in This Case. 81 The district court undertook an analysis similar to that which we set forth today. First, it determined whether, as a factual matter, the Chauffeur program had been copied from the Design Flex program. 18 The court initially found that the defendants had access to the Design Flex program. It then considered the testimony of the expert witnesses and identified a number of similarities between the two programs. The court concluded that the only explanation regarding the constants, the install files, and the overall data flow and presentation, is that the Chauffeur program was copied from the Design Flex program. Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando American, Inc., 798 F.Supp. 1499, 1516 (D.Colo.1992). 82 Next, the court applied the abstractions test to identify unprotectable ideas. The court dissected the program and considered whether certain of the elements more closely approximated idea or expression. The court concluded that the merger doctrine and the scenes a faire doctrine were inapplicable. Finally, the court evaluated what it regarded as the protectable elements and determined that they were sufficiently significant to the Design Flex program to conclude that the defendants had infringed on Gates' copyright in the Design Flex program when it copied such elements. Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1519. 83 The copyright issues on appeal all revolve around whether the district court erroneously extended copyright protection to unprotectable elements of the Design Flex program. The appellants argue that the court failed to consider whether three of the elements of the Design Flex program were protectable, and that it applied the wrong legal standard in protecting certain elements of the Design Flex program. The appellants argue that if a proper filtration analysis were conducted, the Chauffeur program would not be found to have infringed any protectable elements of the Design Flex program. 84 The district court ultimately concluded that the defendants had misappropriated ten elements of the Design Flex program that were protected by Gates' copyright. They included: menus, constants, sorting criteria, control flow, data flow, the engineering calculation module, the design module, common errors, fundamental tasks, and install files. We conclude that the district court failed to undertake a proper filtration analysis with respect to several elements and that it erroneously found other elements to be protectable. Accordingly, we remand for further consideration by the district court. 19 Constants 85 Constants are the invariable integers that comprise part of the formulas used to perform the calculations in the programs. The district court failed to consider whether the constants were unprotectable processes or facts or whether they were subject to the merger doctrine. In failing to undergo the filtration process, the court skipped an essential step in the copyright infringement analysis and as a result extended copyright protection to an unprotectable element of Design Flex. 86 The record reveals that these constants are facts that are unprotectable under copyright law. The constants in the Design Flex program represent scientific observations of physical relationships concerning the load that a particular belt can carry around certain sized gears at certain speeds given a number of other variables. These relationships are not invented or created; they already exist and are merely observed, discovered and recorded. Such a discovery does not give rise to copyright protection. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 347, 111 S.Ct. at 1288 ([F]acts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship. The distinction is one between creation and discovery: the first person to find and report a particular fact has not created the fact; he or she has merely discovered its existence.). 87 Gates claims that the constants should be protected because it spent thousands of hours testing the relationships and because engineers ultimately had to determine the best figure to represent the test results. 20 However, this argument amounts to an assertion of the sweat of the brow doctrine which has been rejected by the Supreme Court. Feist, 499 U.S. at 353-54, 111 S.Ct. at 1291-92. 88 Accordingly, while the constants were probative of the factual question whether the defendants copied from the Design Flex program, 21 they were unprotectable and therefore should have been filtered out before the district court addressed the ultimate question of whether the defendants infringed on Gates' copyright. Instead, the court relied heavily on the similarity of the constants in the two programs when it concluded that Chauffeur infringed on Gates' copyright. It noted that the constants lie at the heart of the dispute, and gave special regard to the mathematical constants in finding that the defendants had violated Gates' copyright. Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1518-19. Because of the court's emphasis on the constants in its reasoning, and our finding that the constants are unprotectable facts, we remand for the district court to consider whether the remaining protectable elements found to have been copied are such a substantial part of the Design Flex program that their misappropriation constitutes copyright infringement. Menus and Sorting Criteria 89 These terms are not defined in the district court opinion. However, menus may mean the visual screen displays that present a computer operator with a limited number of commands available at a given stage in the computer program's operation. Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc., 799 F.Supp. 203, 206 (D.Mass.1992). Sorting criteria would ordinarily mean the factors that determine how the data in the program is organized. The district court failed to undertake a proper filtration analysis with respect to the menus and sorting criteria. Because the record before us is ambiguous and incomplete with regard to these terms, we are unable to determine on appeal whether these elements are protectable. 90 The defendants claim that the menus and the sorting criteria are visual components of the programs as to which Gates has waived all claims of infringement. At trial, counsel for Gates stated that the plaintiff is willing to stipulate that we are making no claim as to trade secret or copyright as to the screens of these computer programs ... Aplt.Apx. at 266. When asked about its claims concerning the menus and sorting criteria at oral argument in this appeal, however, Gates asserted that it had only waived its claims concerning the visual screen displays, and that it maintained a copyright claim on the written elements of the program that created those displays. 91 The district court failed to clarify whether it was referring to the visual screen displays or some other aspect of the program when it discussed the menus and sorting criteria, and it failed to address whether the visual screen display can be separated from the program generating the visual screen display for purposes of the stipulation. Accordingly, we remand for a clarification of the terms menu and sorting criteria; for a determination of whether Gates has waived its infringement claims with respect to these elements; and for a determination of the protectability of such elements if Gates is determined not to have waived its infringement claim with regard to them. Control and Data Flow 92 Control flow refers to the overall sequence of actions and events in a program. Data flow is the sequence of actions taken on each piece of information, that is, how the data travels through the program. The district court found that the flow of these two types of information are closer to the expression of how the task is performed than the idea of undertaking calculation of belts and drives by use of a computer program. Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1518. The defendants object that this conclusion is erroneously predicated on the dicta in Whelan that each program has only one idea. See Whelan, 797 F.2d at 1236. They assert that the control and data flow elements occur at such high levels of abstraction that they are inappropriate for copyright protection. 93 A fair reading of the district court opinion suggests that the court recognized that a computer program may contain more than one idea, and that unprotected ideas may be found throughout the program. However, we are more concerned by the district court's failure to examine the control and data flow in light of the process-expression dichotomy. Again, the district court failed to define exactly what it meant by control flow and data flow and the record is unclear. 22 We remand for clarification of the terms control flow and data flow and for reconsideration of these elements in light of the idea-expression and process-expression dichotomies as they have been set forth in this opinion. Engineering Calculation and Design Modules 94 The program performs its calculations and selects the proper belt through a series of operating instructions contained in modules. The district court concluded that: 95 The modules of the program were also found to be substantially similar. These modules, like chapters of a novel or scenes from a play, performed particular functions--here the engineering calculations and the design aspect of the program (containing the V-belt design algorithms). Concerning the former module, it was noted that behavior was similar, and with the latter the similarity concerned overall structure and organization. With regard to the former module, this falls closer to the expression range because, although the pure engineering aspect in a broad sense may be more likely to be not protected, the relevant engineering modules in the two programs contain particular elements which perform in similar manners. The latter module is somewhat more difficult as it involves algorithms, or procedures for solving given types of mathematical problems. The Court here rejects the argument that while the remaining portion [of the program] is properly protected under copyright law, the algorithms, as a process can only be covered by patent law. Such a holding would tend to fragment further the rather tenuous continuity found in copyright law concerning computer programs. This conclusion is supported by the Whelan decision. 797 F.2d at 1229. 96 Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1518. (emphasis added). 97 The district court identified two modules--the engineering module and the design module--and it found them to be protected for different reasons. The appellant contests this finding, asserting that calculation module, design module, and engineering module are just different names for the same module. Gates has failed to brief this issue. The expert testimony casts doubt on the district court's interpretation that the engineering module and the design module are two separate modules; however, the record is not sufficiently clear to resolve the dispute. 98 The district court found that the engineering module was expression rather than idea because of particular elements which perform in similar manners. Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1518. However, the district court failed to identify those particular elements upon which it based its decision, and it failed to analyze with any particularity whether those elements were ideas, processes, or facts. If, as the district court seems to suggest, the algorithms are process, then they would not be protectable under copyright law. There remains the possibility that they are expressions, but, the court will then need to address the merger doctrine. Further, defendants have drawn our attention to evidence that was before the district court that tends to show that certain module functions were standard in the industry. There is no indication that the district court analyzed those components of the module under the scenes a faire doctrine. Accordingly, we remand for clarification of the district court's analysis and consideration of the modules in light of the process-expression dichotomy, merger and scenes a faire doctrines. Unless the district court provides us with sufficient detail to understand its ruling, we are unable to provide meaningful review of this finding. Common Errors 99 Common errors or misbehaviors are instances in which the two programs share similar errors when not performing correctly or as intended. See Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, 975 F.2d 832, 845 (Fed.Cir.1992); M. Kramer Manufacturing Co. v. Andrews, 783 F.2d 421, 446 (4th Cir.1986). The experts in the instant case identified two such common errors. First, both programs identify that it is impossible to compute a maximum center distance that is less than a minimum center distance, but both programs attempt to do so anyway. Second, both programs will jump to the wrong menu if the cursor happens to be over a certain character during one of the input sequences. 100 While common errors may often be strong evidence of copying as a factual matter, 23 they do not assist in determining what material is protectable under copyright law. BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corp. v. Donnelley Information Publishing, Inc., 999 F.2d 1436 (11th Cir.1993). Relying on several cases that have held that common errors are the strongest evidence of copying, Gates argues that the common errors should be considered protectable. Aplee.Br. at 33. See Atari Games, 975 F.2d at 845; M. Kramer, 783 at 446; E.F. Johnson Co. v. Uniden Corp. of America, 623 F.Supp. 1485, 1496 (D.Minn.1985). However, none of the cases cited by Gates held that the actual misbehavior or faulty operation of the computer was protected. Rather, the cases stand for the limited proposition that evidence that two programs contain the same unnecessary or defective textual instructions is probative on the issue of copying. None of the cases cited considered the protectability of those instructions. Errors per se are not protectable, although the expression containing the error may be protectable if it otherwise meets the test for protectability set forth in this opinion. That analysis is lacking here. Thus, it is necessary for us to remand on this issue. Fundamental Tasks 101 We normally would associate the term fundamental tasks with the highest level of abstraction--that is, the ideas or purposes underlying a program. In the instant case, the district court found the fundamental tasks of the Design Flex program to be protectable expression, but it failed to explain what it thought the fundamental tasks of the Design Flex program were. The district court stated that[a]lthough fundamental tasks may in a broader sense merely describe what are necessary means to effect a particular end, the term here is more specific due to the types of tasks which were available to achieve the particular end of designing belts and drives. 102 Gates Rubber, 798 F.Supp. at 1519. This discussion suggests the district court held a different understanding of the term fundamental tasks than what we would normally understand it to mean. However, we do not understand what the district court meant, nor do we have the benefit of the district court analysis beyond its mere conclusion that the merger doctrine is not applicable. Accordingly, we must remand for further analysis of this element as well. Install Files 103 The install files here are separate utility programs that are used to load the program from a floppy disk onto a hard disk. They are part of the Disk Operating System and apparently are not part of the Design Flex program. Accordingly, it is not clear that Gates has a copyright claim on the install files. The district court failed to make adequate findings on this element to enable us to determine if the install files were covered by Gate's copyright and it failed to engage in a filtration analysis as to this element. Accordingly, we remand for a determination of whether Gates held a copyright on the install files and for a reconsideration of the install files in light of the test we have set forth herein. 24 104