A California Jury Finds Copyright Infringement In an Interface (deepchip.com)

whoever57 writes: A California jury in one of the cases between Synopsys and Atoptech found copyright infringement in Atoptech's use of the "Primetime commands". These companies compete in the field of EDA ("Electronic Design Automation") software: software that is used by semiconductor companies to design ICs. The Primetime commands are merely an interface. Atoptech has their own implementation of the functionality that these commands [provide]. This can be seen as similar to the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit, in which an appeals court has found that providing a similar interface (via header files) can constitute copyright infringement. Naturally, there will be appeals in this case.

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This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

A copyright infringement case is up before in East Texas alleging that parrots infringe on the human copyright of speech. The defense wanted to bring in specialists to discuss convergent evolution, but the judge said, "I don't see what a bunch of biologists has to do with copyright law."

So API don't matter

[goombah99]

If you beleive anything you might have learned in computer science surely it is that spending time to get the API right is the most important thing. populating the implementation of the sub sections defined by the API is the work you give to the C-students. You let the A-students come define the interface. The API is the most valuable part of the whole