Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984

Citation: Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 (SCPA), title III of Pub. L. No. 98-620, 98 Stat. 3335, 3347 (Nov. 8, 1984), codified at 17 U.S.C. 901-914.

The Act extended legal protection to a new form of subject matter &mdash; semiconductor chip mask works &mdash; in order to address the problem of chip piracy.

The SCPA uses a modified copyright approach to protect the topography of integrated circuits against copying. There is no patent-like examination process; the "mask work" is registered with the Copyright Office. However, the SCPA has a novelty standard somewhat higher than the mere “originality” standard of copyright law: protection is not available for a mask work that “consists of designs that arc staple, commonplace, or familiar in the semiconductor industry or variations of such designs, combined in a way that, considered as a whole, is not original.”

The bundle of rights is also somewhat different from that granted under copyright law, and copies of the "mask work" made in the course of reverse engineering are not infringing, in spite of proof of unauthorized copying and striking similarity, so long as the resulting semiconductor chip product was the result of study and analysis and contained technological improvement.

The SCPA provides for remedies similar to those associated with copyright protection, does not allow for criminal penalties, and maintains a higher limit on statutory damages than that provided for in the Copyright Act. Finally, semiconductor chip protection differs from copyright in that the term of protection is only ten (10) years.