SAS Institute is a software company in North Carolina. Founded in 1976, it employs thousands of people in the United States and thousands more around the world. World Programming, Ltd. (WPL) is a British company that decided to build a clone of SAS’s popular analytics software and, as several courts have found, broke the law to do it. After a decade of litigation across two continents and an unpaid multi-million-dollar judgment, the parties are once again in court. This time, however, WPL’s arguments pose grave dangers to all owners of other copyrighted works. WPL did not try to compete with SAS by building a different or better product. Instead, it ordered copies of SAS’s products under the guise of an educational license, but with the true intent to reverse-engineer and copy key elements, including the selection and arrangement of its outputs, and even the manuals licensed users receive from SAS. The result is that WPL produced a clone, taking the exact same input and producing the exact same output that SAS does. Avoiding the years of investment and fine-tuning that SAS undertook to create its market-leading software, WPL undercut SAS’s price in the market and lured away SAS’s customers.
Recent Posts
- Cellspin Attempt at Recusal in Case Against Fitbit Falls Flat at CAFC
- Other Barks & Bites for Friday, November 1: USCO Grants Right to Repair Copyright Exemption to Restaurants; EU Hits Teva with $503 Million Fine for Misusing Patent System; and Former USPTO Director Andrei Iancu Endorses Trump
- CAFC Affirms Several PTAB Findings that Centripetal’s Network Security Patent Claims are Obvious
- Perlmutter Gets Pressure from Congress to Release AI Reports
- Life Sciences Masters Panelists Say USPTO’s Controversial Anti-Pharma Rules are Unlikely to Progress