Computer Programs, User Interfaces, and Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act of 1976: A Critique of Lotus v. Paperback

The Supreme Court\u27s landmark ruling Lotus Development Corp vs Paperback Software International is critiqued. The ruling did not resolve the issue of whether copyright law protects user interfaces

It Walks Like a Duck, Talks Like a Duck, . . . But Is It a Duck? Making Sense of Substantial Similarity Law as It Applies to User Interfaces

This Comment recommends how courts should apply the substantial similarity analysis to user interfaces. Specifically, this Comment (1) delineates the state of the law in the Ninth Circuit and explains how the recent changes should be interpreted with respect to user interfaces; (2) establishes an analytic framework for evaluating proposed substantial similarity tests through the enumeration of a set of goals specific to user interfaces; and (3) uses this analytic framework to evaluate and endorse a test that applies traditional copyright doctrine to a logical and consistent manner

It Walks Like a Duck, Talks Like a Duck, . . . But Is It a Duck? Making Sense of Substantial Similarity Law as It Applies to User Interfaces

This Comment recommends how courts should apply the substantial similarity analysis to user interfaces. Specifically, this Comment (1) delineates the state of the law in the Ninth Circuit and explains how the recent changes should be interpreted with respect to user interfaces; (2) establishes an analytic framework for evaluating proposed substantial similarity tests through the enumeration of a set of goals specific to user interfaces; and (3) uses this analytic framework to evaluate and endorse a test that applies traditional copyright doctrine to a logical and consistent manner

Copyrighting Experiences: How Copyright Law Applies to Virtual Reality Programs

This note will attempt to shed light on the question of what kind of protection copyright law affords VR experiences. Part II discusses the nature of VR experiences and their implementation through specifically tailored VR technology. Part III provides an overview of copyright protection, its limitations, and specifically the history of the copyrightability of computer programs. Parts IV and V outline case law relevant to the discussion of the copyrightability of different types of VR experiences and how that case law similarly or dissimilarly apply to the protection of VR experiences. Part IV focuses on protecting VR experiences as a literary work, through its underlying code and Part V will focus on protecting VR experiences as audiovisual works, through its visual outputs. Part VI discusses a potential avenue for obtaining copyright protection through the useful article doctrine, while avoiding some of the major roadblocks to copyright protection that discussed in the previous sections. Finally, Part VII provides a summary and conclusion of the current state of protection for the elements which make up VR experiences as well as suggestions for how VR developers may want to proceed in order to obtain the largest scope of protection for their works

Hybrid IP Rights For Software, APIs, and GUIs: Understanding Copyright\u27s Paradigm Shift

The non-literal scope of protection for software is intricate legally and is intricate technical. Thus, despite literally decades of court decisions and a mountain of legal scholar written on the subject in that time, it appears that there is still no consistent agreement about it, as evidenced by the Google v. Oracle which has percolated in the courts for nearly a decade and is now being heard by the US Supreme Court (oral argument was on October 7, 2020). However, the thesis of this article that a legal construct is capable of being formulated that is analytically consistent and that explains some of decisions that reach contrary outcomes (or dicta expressing some contrary views)