Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
49 F.3d 807 (1995)
Relevant factsFree
Lotus (plaintiff) developed a menu command hierarchy (commands like "copy" or "print") necessary to operate its Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program, and Borland (defendant) copied that hierarchy into its own competing program; the district court found infringement, reasoning the hierarchy was copyrightable because its specific command terms could easily have been renamed without changing functionality (e.g., "quit" could have been "exit"), and Borland appealed.
IssueFree
Whether a computer menu command hierarchy is copyrightable.
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