Copyright Infringement Requires A Lot More Than Vague Similarities

from the ain't-the-same dept

Thu, Jun 11th 2009 9:04pm — Mike Masnick

Michael Scott points us to a story about a lawsuit accusing Adobe of copyright infringement for its InDesign software product. The complaint was from a company called Brookhaven Typesetting Services. The judge sided with Adobe -- and it isn't difficult to see why. What is difficult is figuring out how or why Brookhaven thought it had a case. The company apparently had a page layout software product called K2 back in the early 90s. At some point, the company tried to license it to Aldus, who had a popular page layout software called PageMaker -- including sending Aldus the source code. Aldus, of course, was eventually bought by Adobe, and Adobe eventually released InDesign as a replacement for PageMaker. So what's the complaint? Well, when InDesign was in development, its code name was K2. So, yes, it was a similar page layout software, and the code name was the same as Brookhaven's product name. So you could see where Brookhaven would be initially suspicious. But the problem was that there was no fire behind the smoke. A comparison of the two products' source code showed no similarities whatsoever. The product was clearly entirely separate. Yet, once Brookhaven lost the case... it still appealed, only to have now lost again. For some reason, some people seem to think that any similarity at all is copyright infringement, but that's simply not true.

Filed Under: copyright, design software, indesign, k2
Companies: adobe, brookhaven typesetting services

6 Comments

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GregSJ (profile), 11 Jun 2009 @ 9:44pm

Mike,
This one could be really simple: contingency fee. Or just a gamble that the relatively low appeals cost was worth the potential multi-million dollar judgment
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jun 2009 @ 9:52pm

I believe the linked article, and the comments in this article, can easily be misconstrued and give the impression that this was an easy, slam-dunk copyright case resolved in Adobe's favor. Even a cursory review of the court opinion reveals that the lawsuit was broader in scope and included claims under California state law.

While Adobe apparently prevailed by receiving a summary judgement, it would be inaccurate to say that BTS filed and prosecuted this case in an uninformed and misguided manner.
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Luci, 11 Jun 2009 @ 10:53pm

Re:
Only if you failed to read the linked article which says the summary judgement was passed six years after the initial filing. Sorry, but you fail.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jun 2009 @ 8:02am

Re: Re:
Perhaps if you read the summary judgement order issued by the court you would better understand the comment I made and why.
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another mike (profile), 12 Jun 2009 @ 2:09pm

Re:
I'd go with the second guess, Greg.
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Trollificus, 13 Jun 2009 @ 6:52am

I always wonder...
...why people always wonder why companies sue so much.

If you ask your grocer if you should buy more groceries, he will say yes. If you ask your mechanic whether you should have extensive preventive maintenance done monthly, he will say yes. If you ask your drug dealer if you should get another baggie/balloon/whatever "for the road", he will say yes.

Consult with your legal team as to whether you should undertake action that will increase their billable hours...

Not meaning to imply that any lawyer is ever less than perfectly ethical, of course.
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