This article examines three critical, interrelated challenges for reforming legal protection for computer software: (1) analyzing the market failures that might justify government intervention to define (or alter) the legal entitlements granted for software innovations; (2) predicting the likely...

In Rise of the API Copyright Dead? An Updated Epitaph for Copyright Protection of Network and Functional Features of Computer Software, I analyzed and critiqued the Federal Circuit’s 2014 ruling in Oracle v. Google that revives the flawed and long-dormant Whelan framework for analyzing the...

After a decade of bruising legal battles, the courts and software industry norms largely resolved the costly war over the scope of copyright protection for computer software. By the mid 1990s, freedom to develop interoperable devices, systems, and software triumphed over broad copyright...

The Supreme Court should grant review of the Federal Circuit's decisions in Oracle v. Google for two compelling sets of reasons. First, the Federal Circuit's decisions conflict with this Court's seminal decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), misinterpret Congress's codification of this...

Four decades ago, the Ninth Circuit ruled that expert testimony was inadmissible to determine whether Mayor McCheese and the merry band of McDonaldland characters infringed copyright protection for Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo and the other imaginative H.R. Pufnstuf costumed characters. Since the...

This article describes the evolution of copyright protection for computer software. It shows how the courts successfully deployed and adapted copyright doctrines in a manner that protected software against piracy while at the same time allowing for competition and innovation