In a surprise ruling, a US Federal appeals court has reversed the lower court ruling that Borland International Inc’s Quattro and Quattro Pro spreadsheets – now owned by Novell Inc – infringe the copyright of Lotus Development Corp’s 1-2-3. Further lower court proceedings to determine damages, which had been scheduled to begin today, will now be cancelled.The lower court had held that the menu command hierarchy infringed the copyright in Lotus’s 1-2-3, but the appeals court decided that the Lotus menu command hierarchy is uncopyrightable subject matter. Such commands are a method of operation and such methods can’t be copyrighted. Lotus had argued that the order of menu commands represented a creative decision by a programmer that was copyrightable. The ruling implies that Lotus should have taken out patents on aspects of 1-2-3 if it wanted to protect the look and feel of the program: the underlying code, which is copyrightable, differs in the two products. The ruling lifts a load off Borland, which with cash likely to be down to $47m by June, would not have been able to meet the damages for which it was expected to be liable if the ruling had stood – but it also removes the deadly poisonous pill that made Borland almost immune from the threat of being acquired. Lotus commented that it was surprised and disappointed by the decision, adding that it hadn’t yet decided whether to pursue its one remaining option, which is to appeal to the US Supreme Court.
