Brussels, 04/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - The functionality of a computer programme and the programming language cannot be protected by copyright and neither can the format of data files used in programming to run some of the program, which cannot be seen as a form of expression, ruled the European Court of Justice on 2 May 2012 (Ruling C-406/10), in answer to a question raised by the High Court of Justice in England, which wanted to know whether the copyright granted to computer programmes under EU Directive 91/250/EEC covered the programming language and “functionality”. The Court of Justice added that “the purchaser of a licence for a programme is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program”.
The Court of Justice points out that the directive on the legal protection of computer programmes extends copyright protection to the expression in any form of an intellectual creation of the author of a computer program. However, ideas and principles which underlie any element of a computer program, including those which underlie its interfaces, are not protected by copyright under that directive. Thus, only the expression of those ideas and principles such as the (source code and the object code, which permits reproduction in different computer languages) is protected by copyright. “To accept that the functionality of a computer program can be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development”, explains the Court.
Consequently, the Court states that if a third party were to procure the part of the source code or object code relating to the programming language or to the format of data files used in a computer program, and if that party were to create, with the aid of that code, similar elements in its own computer program, that conduct would be liable to be prohibited by the author of the program. Secondly, the Court observes that, according to the directive, the purchaser of a software licence has the right to observe, study or test the functioning of that software in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program. There is no copyright infringement where, as in the present case, the lawful acquirer of the licence did not have access to the source code of the computer program but merely studied, observed and tested that program in order to reproduce its functionality in a second program. The Court holds that the reproduction, in a computer program or a user manual for that program, of certain elements described in the user manual for another computer program protected by copyright is capable of constituting an infringement of the copyright in the latter manual if that reproduction constitutes the expression of the intellectual creation of the author of the manual. In this respect, the Court takes the view that, in the present case, the keywords, syntax, commands and combinations of commands, options, defaults and iterations consist of words, figures or mathematical concepts, considered in isolation, are not, as such, an intellectual creation of the author of that program. It is only through the choice, sequence and combination of those words, figures or mathematical concepts that the author expresses his creativity in an original manner. (FG/transl.fl)