We had some discussion about this case last year. It concerned the question whether the defendants had infringed copyright in the claimant's package of programs. They had produced a competing product through studying the operation of the original programs. There was no question of access to the original source code.
At trial Mr Justice Arnold indicated doubt whether there was copyright infringement but referred a series of questions to the European Court of Justice. The answers were given last year and in a Judgement delivered on 25 January Mr Justice Arnold gave his final decision.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the decision is very much in favour of the defendants. Copyright, he held did not subsist in programming languages and the activities conducted by the defendant fell within the ambit of the provisions of the Directive on the legal protection of computer programs
Overall, an interesting case and further confirmation of the limited extent of copyright protection against acts which do not involve mere copying of an original work.
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