SAS Institute lawsuit with World Programming
An editor has nominated this article for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion, which will decide whether or not to retain it. |
The SAS Institute, creators of SAS System filed a lawsuit against World Programming Limited, creators of World Programming System or WPS. The dispute was whether World Programming had infringed copyrights on SAS Institute Products, and Manuals and whether World Programming used SAS Learning Edition to reverse engineer SAS system in violation with its term of usage.
The High Court of England and Wales made the following observations and a copy can be obtained at Judgement
ix) On the interpretation of Article 5(3) which I favour, WPL's use of the Learning Edition is within Article 5(3), and to the extent that the licence terms prevent this they are null and void, with the result that none of WPL's acts complained of was a breach of contract or an infringement of copyright except perhaps one (see paragraphs 313-315 above).
x) WPL has infringed the copyrights in the SAS Manuals by substantially reproducing them in the WPL Manual (see paragraphs 317-319 above).
xi) WPL has not infringed the copyrights in the SAS Manuals by producing the WPS Guides (see paragraphs 320-329 above).
but the most important part was in the conclusion
iv) On the assumption that Pumfrey J's interpretation of Article 1(2) of the Software Directive was correct, WPL has not infringed SAS Institute's copyrights in the SAS Components by producing WPS (see paragraphs 245-250 above).
- SAS can be considered a general programming language, though it serves largely as a database programming language and a language with a wide variety of specialized analytic and graphic procedures
- 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 verdict conclusion is here-
108. The question now is whether, by including in the WPL Manual and the WPL System certain elements contained in the SAS Manuals, WPL infringed the copyright held by SAS institute in the latter manuals.
109. As we saw in point 43 of this Opinion, copyright is guided by the principle that copyright protection extends to expressions and not to ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.
110. In this case, the referring court states that WPL has, in particular, taken the keywords, syntax, commands and combinations of commands, options, defaults and iterations from the SAS Manuals in order to reproduce them in its program, as well as in the WPL manual.
111. In my opinion, these elements, as such, do not qualify for the protection conferred by copyright.
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
Additional US Lawsuit
The US case filed by SAS Institute against WPS was dismissed
SAS INSTITUTE INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
WORLD PROGRAMMING LIMITED,
Defendant.
In their briefing, the parties have raised for the court’s consideration a variety of interesting
and complex questions of law. But after considering the able arguments of counsel for both sides,
the court is unable to conclude that it clearly erred in dismissing this action on for forum non
conveniens. As such, and for the reasons set forth more particularly above, plaintiff’s motion to
alter or amend judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e) (DE # 53) is DENIED.
SO ORDERED, this the 22nd day of June, 2011.
Interpretation of Judgement
WPS is a legally produced software and has no outstanding legal liabilities pending from SAS Institute.
It has a right to sell this software commercially and provide support for it.
External links
 | This redirect needs additional or more specific categories. (July 2011) |