| A federal judge has ruled that Borland International's
Quattro Pro spreadsheet program infringes on Lotus
Development's copyrights of the 1-2-3 spreadsheet program
and that a trial by jury is now needed to determine the
extent of the copying. Borland, which was expected to
appeal the decision, announced shortly after the decision
that it is shipping a new version of its Quattro Pro
spreadsheet that lacks the optional 1-2-3 interface. U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton scheduled a pretrial conference for September 23 and a tentative trial date for November 2. Hank Gutman, partner at O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell and lead counsel for Lotus in the lawsuit, said in a press conference that the few remaining issues along with damages will likely be addressed in the jury trial. New Quattro Pro buyers can still order 123.mu at a nominal charge. Judge Keeton's ruling appears to conflict with the one handed down in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan, NY) in a case between Altai and Computer Associates International. That ruling said that copycat programs that closely mimic the structure of older software programs do not violate copyrights. "The whole area is totally confused. Somebody has to sort this out," said Ronald Abramson, intellectual property counsel with the New York firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed. But who will hang the bell on the proverbial cat: the U.S. Congress or the Supreme Court? "Legislation might be a mistake," Abramson said. "If someone writes legislation, we'll be in court again for the next 15 years trying to decide what [the new law] means." He said the best hope of resolving this issue is that the Supreme Court will finally accept and review one of these cases. The Borland/Lotus or Apple/Microsoft/Hewlett-Packard cases are likely candidates for review because they are easier to follow and more sharply defined than the CA/Altai case, Abramson said. If the Supreme Court were to accept one of the cases, a decision wouldn't likely come down before October 1994. Copyright 1994-1997 BYTE |