Court decision · 2 May 2012
SAS Institute Inc. v World Programming Ltd
Case C-406/10, ECLI:EU:C:2012:259 · Court of Justice of the European Union (Grand Chamber)
What it means for your code
Re-implementing a competitor's functionality is lawful in the EU, but copying code, manuals or licence-restricted material is not.
What happened
A company reproduced the functionality of SAS software, studying it under a learning-edition licence, without access to source code.
What was decided
Neither the functionality of a computer program, nor its programming language, nor data file formats are protected as expression under the Software Directive; a licensee may observe, study and test a program to determine its underlying ideas.
The legal test applied
- Copyright protects the expression of a program, not its functionality, programming language or data file formats
- A licensee may observe, study and test a program to determine the ideas underlying it
What would have changed the outcome
- Copying source or object code, or substantial parts of manuals, can infringe
Summary and analysis by Lawpatch, checked by an editor against the source. Risk analysis, not legal advice; the law may have moved on since this decision.