Lotus Development Corporation developed a spreadsheet program in the mid-1980's called 1-2-3 that became a corporate standard. Basically, the spreadsheet had a menu bar at the top of the screen, column and row labels on the side and top of the workspace and a set of macro commands for user programmability. Paperback Software was, at the same time, developing a competing product called VP Planner. Realizing that 1-2-3 controlled the huge corporate spreadsheet market, Paperback Software re-wrote the program in such a way that it looked almost exactly like 1-2-3, executed the exact same macro commands as 1-2-3 and touted it in marketing and user documentation that it was a 1-2-3 work-alike - a duplicate of 1-2-3. Lotus filed a lawsuit against them in 1987 and, citing that Paperback Software could have followed the same development pattern as Microsoft Corporation and Borland International, the judge gave the decision to Lotus Development Corporation. Lotus owned the "look and feel" of their spreadsheet, which included the menu, prompts, function key assignments, macro command language, and workspace layout. Lotus later decided that the term "look and feel" did not appropriately describe the elements of 1-2-3 upon which Paperback Software had infringed. They instead began referring to those elements as user interface. The judge, in his final decree, determined that the language and history of the Copyright Act make it clear that computer programs are protected as literary works, further stating that the statutory definition of "literary works" is not limited to works that we would consider literature. The context of the law makes it clear that copying can occur without literal reproduction of the words or pictures. Copy of plot, characters or sequence of events constitutes violation and has never been upheld as permissible. According to Anthony Clapes, "It has always been viewed as copying of elements of expression of creative originality."
A second case that provided the computer community with legal protection rulings was the Apple Computer Corp. vs. Microsoft Corporation lawsuit. This case ended with a different ruling. To quote presiding Circuit Judge Rymer,
Lisa and Macintosh are Apple computers. Each has a graphical user interface ("GUI") which Apple Computer, Inc. registered for copyright as an audiovisual work. Both GUIs were developed as a user-friendly way for ordinary mortals to communicate with the Apple computer; the Lisa Desktop and the Macintosh Finder are based on a desktop metaphor with windows, icons and pull-down menus which can be manipulated on the screen with a hand-held device called a mouse. When Microsoft Corporation released Windows 1.0, having a similar GUI, Apple complained. As a result, the two agreed to a license giving Microsoft the right to use and sublicense derivative works generated by Windows 1.0 in present and future products. Microsoft released Windows 1.03 and later, Windows 3.0; its licensee, Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), introduced NewWave 1.0 and later, NewWave 3.0, which run in conjunction with Windows to make IBM-compatible computers easier to use. Apple believed that these versions make Windows more "Mac-like," and infringe its copyright.
Further in the court documents, such detail items as "zooming rectangle", animation associated with the opening or closing of an icon into a window, etc. are questioned as being an infringement on the part of Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. Apple lost this lawsuit and later took it to the Court of Appeals. Apple's position was that the license to Microsoft for Windows permitted use of visual displays as long as Windows or any other Windows product did not become more like the Macintosh than Windows 1.0. According to Stephen Manes, Microsoft's legal strategy was that of "breaking Apple's nebulous 'gestalt' and 'look-and-feel' theory into specific identifiable elements and then knocking each one down like uncopyrightable bowling pins...demonstrating nearly two dozen windowing systems...that used elements Apple claimed to own."
