SAS appeal in WPL case rejected
The England & Wales Court of Appeal has dismissed a copyright case brought by software producer SAS Institute against World Programming (WPL).
Mr Justice Arnold had rejected three of four SAS’ claims, including that WPL had infringed the copyright in SAS’ computer programs, earlier this year.
SAS developed SAS System, a program for processing and analysing data, while UK-based WPL produced an alternative program – WPS – which executed application programs written in SAS language. SAS sued WPL for copyright infringement in 2009.
Before his ruling in January, Arnold had asked the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) whether computer program functionality can be copyrighted, but the court said no in 2012. Arnold then dismissed the copyright claim covering SAS System’s functionality. He also rejected claims that WPL copied SAS’ manuals to produce its own program and that WPL broke a licensing agreement covering SAS software (called learning edition).
But Arnold said there had been limited breaches of copyright when WPL reproduced SAS’ manuals to produce its own guides. WPL said it removed the manuals in 2010.
SAS appealed against all the findings other than the ruling of non-infringement against SAS System’s functionality, including the remainder of the claim on manual breaches.
Lord Justice Lewison, writing for the appeals court on November 21, said that after Arnold’s ruling the parties failed to agree what the CJEU had actually decided in 2012.
“The language in which the court expressed its judgment was, at times, disappointingly compressed, if not obscure. Moreover, although the judge had referred specific and detailed questions to the CJEU, the CJEU refrained from answering them, but instead answered its own paraphrase.
“This led to a disagreement about whether the court had actually given answers to all the questions posed,” he said.
Lewison said while he disagreed with some of Arnold’s reasoning from earlier this year, those disagreements “do not affect the ultimate result” because the appeal is against the judge's order rather than against his reasons.
“I would dismiss the appeal,” Lewison said, with Lord Justices Vos and Tomlinson agreeing.
An SAS spokesman said the company is “clearly” disappointed by the decision, adding: “We are seeking the right to appeal as we recognise how this ruling negatively impacts the global software industry. We strongly believe that investment in innovation should be protected and we want to do everything we can to make sure that the hard work many developers undergo to create original work is not copied and diluted through copyright infringement.”
WPL declined to comment.
