Lotus Development v. Borland International

Citation
Lotus Dev. Corp. v. Borland Int’l, Inc., 49 F.3d 807 (1st Cir. 1995) (full-text), aff’d per curiam, 516 U.S. 233 (1996).

Factual Background
Borland had copied the Lotus 1-2-3 menu command hierarchy to enable prior Lotus users to switch to Borland’s spreadsheet software "without having to learn new commands or rewrite their Lotus macros." The question was whether a computer menu command hierarchy is copyrightable subject matter.

Appellate Court Proceedings
The First Circuit concluded that the Lotus 1-2-3 menu command hierarchy was an unprotectible method of operation.

U.S. Supreme Court Proceedings
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this case through a 4-4 vote, with no opinion, further underscoring the difficulties in distinguishing protected expression from unprotected ideas under copyright law.

Comment
The case raised a number of difficult and important issues regarding compatibility and customer "switching-costs" in the context of interpreting the scope of intellectual property protection for software.