Practical Legal Aspects of Software Reverse Engineering

Communications of the ACM

Volumn 41, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 27-29

  Behrens, Brian C ^a   Levary, Reuven R ^b  

^a Suelthaus and Walsh PC   (United States)

^b SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPUTER SOFTWARE; COPYRIGHTS; LAWS AND LEGISLATION; MARKETING; REGULATORY COMPLIANCE; REVERSE ENGINEERING; SPREADSHEETS;

COMPUTER INDUSTRY; COMPUTER REVERSE ENGINEERING;

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING;

EID: 0031988208     PISSN: 00010782     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1145/269012.269017     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of American, Inc., 975 F.2d 832 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
2. Atari, 975 F. 2d at 843. The court noted that [b]ecause Atari was not in authorized possession of the Copyright Office copy of 10NES, any copying or derivative copying of 10NES source code from the Copyright Office does not qualify as a fair use."
3. Davis, G., III. Scope of protection of computer-based works: Reverse engineering clean rooms and decompilation. In 15th Annual Computer Law Institute. Handbook Series (Patent, Copyright, Trademarks, and Literary Property Course), 1993, pages 1-15.
4. 977 F. 2d at 1527.
5. 740 F. Supp. 37 (D. Mass., 1990).
6. Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 562-63 (where the court noted that knowing exploitation of purloined manuscript was not compatible with "good faith" and "fair dealings" underpinnings of fair use doctrine).
7. Hayes, D. The legality of disassembly of computer programs. Comput./Law J. 14, 1 (Jan. 1992), 4-12.
8. Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 1283 (N.D. Cal. 1991), aff'd 964 F.2d 965 (9th Cir.1992) (where Galoob manufactured the Game Genie, which attached to Nintendo's video game cartridges and modified the game temporarily to alter certain game aspects, such as allowing the player to obtain more "lives" in a street battle. The court held reverse engineering to be an appropriate use in order to design this attachment to work with Nintendo's games).
9. McCabe, P. Reverse engineering of computer software: A trap for the unwary? Comput. L. Assoc. Bul. 1, 2 (Feb. 1994), 1-15.
10. Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F. 2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992).
11. Whelan Associates, Inc. v. Jaslow Dental Lab, Inc., 797 F. 2d 1222 (3rd Cir. 1986), cert denied, 479 U.S. 1031 (1987) (where the court devised an approach to differentiate protected expression from unprotected functions and ideas, an approach that has been roundly criticized).