SAS Institute lawsuit with World Programming

The SAS Institute, creators of the SAS System filed a lawsuit against World Programming Limited, creators of World Programming System (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 case is interesting because World Programming did not have access to the SAS Institute's source code, and so the court considered the merits of a copyright claim based on observing functionality only. The European Committee for Interoperable Systems say that the case is important to the software industry. Some observers say the case is as important as the Borland versus Lotus case.

The EU Court of Justice ruled that copyright protection does not extend to the software functionality, the programming language used and the format of the data files used by the program. It stated that there is no copyright infringement when a company which does not have access to the source code of a program studies, observes and tests that program to create another program with the same functionality.

Decision

The High Court of England and Wales made the following observations.

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).

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, the decision 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 directly copy 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 stated:

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.

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 is available.

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.

External links

• The full judgement
• ECIS Symposium on the Case