Executive Intellectual Property Bulletin
Computer Menu Not Protected by Copyright
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided that the menu structure of a computer program is not protected by copyright. This case, MiTek Holdings, Inc. v. Arce Engineering Co., 89 F.3d 1548 (11 Cir. Ct. App.), was decided on August 5th. The primary issue of this case was whether copyright law protects the menu structure of a computer program.
MiTek and Arce are both in the wood truss industry. Wood trusses are the triangular wood beam assemblies used in construction which support the roof of a building. Each company created a computer program which calculated the placement of the trusses for a proposed building: Arce's program was called TrussPro and MiTek's was called ACES. MiTek sued Arce, alleging that the TrussPro program infringed the copyright in the ACES program by having a very similar menu-driven user interface.
The District Court found that the main menu and submenu command structure in the ACES program is an uncopyrightable "process" offering to the user menu commands to perform the normal steps used by an engineer to calculate the placement of wood trusses. The Court of Appeals affirmed this decision and offered the following opinion.
The Copyright Act states that "copyright does not extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation, regardless of the form in which it is described or embodied."
MiTek did not argue that the TrussPro infringed the literal elements (i.e., source code and object code) of its ACES program. Rather, MiTek believed that the copyright of "nonliteral" elements of the ACES program had been infringed. Nonliteral elements are those objects generated by the source code and object code, such as screen displays and menu structures.
The main menu and its associated submenu command structure was found by the court to be the means by which the layout program undertakes the task of drafting roof truss planes, mimicking the steps a draftsperson would follow in designing the plan by hand. Therefore, the main menu and submenu command structure was determined to be a process and thus not entitled to copyright protection.
This finding follows the recent Lotus v. Borland case (49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995), aff'd 116 S. Ct. (804) (1996)) affirmed by an equally divided Supreme Court in January, which found the menu command hierarchy of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program to be an uncopyrightable method of operation that provides the means by which a computer user controls and operates the software, much like a VCR is operated with buttons on a remote control device.
Although the MiTek court was careful to say that a main menu and submenu command structure is not uncopyrightable as a matter of law — i.e., that a main menu or submenu command structure can never be created so as to embody copyrightable elements — the MiTek and Lotus rulings make menus and command structure unlikely to be protected by courts by copyright law. This means that software developers can create main menus and command structures in their programs which are similar to those found in other programs. At the same time, they should not expect copyright protection in their own main menus and command structures. Thus, there remains uncertainty on the copyrightability of menus in computer programs. However, remember that patent law still offers protection of these types of user interfaces.
For more information on this topic or any other topic, please contact any of the attorneys at Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, P.A. at 612-339-0331 or by facsimile at 612-339-3061 or via this website.
