Date:         Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:08:54 -0800
Reply-To:     Aleksandra Pietruszynska <aleksandrapietruszynska@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Aleksandra Pietruszynska <aleksandrapietruszynska@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: OT: SAS sues WPS
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Jonathan,

We are getting into law details, that may not interest others here.
But, interesting to know about the Lotus case, from wikipedia:

".....However when they sued Borland over its Quattro Pro spreadsheet,
the courts ruled that it was not a copyright violation to merely have
a compatible command menu or language. In 1995, the First Circuit
found that command menus are an uncopyrightable "method of operation"
under section 102(b) of the Copyright Act...."

And what does section 102(b) of the copyright act say:

"(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of
authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of
operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in
which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such
work."

Now the key question:  Is the syntax of SAS merely an "idea" / "method
of operation"? In other words:

DATA xyz;
  SET abc;
  IF col1 < 100;
RUN;

is this unique to SAS or can it be considered as a general method of
operation, a general description that tells a program to copy a part
of abc, and call the copy abc. The fact that SAS does not follow this
line of reasoning in their lawsuit tells me that they don't believe
this way is very promising. Instead, they rely on "abusing  the
license conditions of SAS LE"....

A.P.



On Nov 23, 11:33 pm, jgoldb...@BIOMEDSYS.COM (Jonathan Goldberg)
wrote:
> "In other words can syntax in
>
> > > > > general fall under copyright?"
>
> Yes.  This has been the departement of simple answers to simple questions.
>
> (While I think it's disgusting, it was settled back in the days when
> Borland Quattro Pro was trying to interoperate with Lotus 123 macros.)