The effect of Lotus v. Borland or /spl hellip/ "Whose program is it anyway?"

In the 1992 case of Lotus v. Borland, the screen displays were conceded to be different: Borland had designed an interface that, in many respects, looked substantially different from the 1-2-3 user interface. This case was about copyrightable expression in the form of menu commands, a menu command hierarchy and structure, keystroke sequences and a macro language. The thrust of the discussion, however, relies on proof that what the program was designed to fit was already in existence before the program was designed to fit it. The menu command hierarchy has a functional aspect when incorporated into the keystroke sequences and macros. That functional aspect is separable from the expressive aspect that preceded it. The initial choice of the command set was a free choice. Moreover, even if some macros are copyrightable, it may be that the owner of any copyright in a macro is the user who authored the macro and not Lotus. The menu commands, menu command hierarchy, macro language and keystroke sequences are copyrightable. The result of the case was that Borland withdrew the compatible mode but left the key reader in the native mode.<>