West Coast Federal Appeals Court Upholds Chip Protection Act Violation Finding

The SCPA (Semiconductor Chip Protection Act) is an intellectual property law that Congress passed in 1984 to protect the US semiconductor industry from so-called chip piracy - the copying of IC layouts by what amounted to photoor xerographic duplication - which was then widespread. The SCPA combines aspects of copyright law and patent law; in some ways it differs from both of them. The Senate originally passed the SCPA as a part of an amendment to the US Copyright Law. In addition to the compromise preserving reverse engineering while prohibiting outright copying, the SCPA contains a compromise over the kind of subject matter that it protects: ideas, concepts, and principles cannot be protected from adoption by others. Similar to ideas and principles, layout features that function dictates cannot be monopolized under the SCPA