SAS Institute Inc v.

World Programming Ltd

England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) (Nov 21, 2013)

SUMMARY

Procedural History: Judge referred a series of questions to the Court of Justice of the
European Union. Following his third judgment, the judge dismissed the claims of SAS
Institute except for limited breaches of copyright in relation to the Manual to Manual
Claim. The appeal is against the judge's order.
Facts:World Programming Ltd (WPL) is a competitor of SAS Institute. WPL created a
product called World Programming System ("WPS") to compete with SAS Institute. SAS
Institute claimed that WPL committed a series of infringements of copyright and acted in
breach of contract in creating WPS and its accompanying documentation. The SAS System
consists of DATA steps and PROC steps. The SAS Manuals contain information about the
external behavior of the SAS System, but say almost nothing about its internal operation.
WPL's evidence was that the WPS Manual was not copied directly from the SAS Manuals.
Issue:Whether WPL committed copyright infringement and acted in breach of contract in
creating WPS and its accompanying documentation.
Rule:The Software Directive and the Information Society Directive protect the expression
of ideas in a computer program, but not the ideas themselves. The functionality of a
computer program is not protected as a form of expression. Contractual provisions that are
contrary to the exceptions provided for in the Software Directive are null and void. For an
infringement of copyright to exist, the defendant's work must represent the claimant's work
in some real sense.
Analysis:The Court of Justice of the European Union held that the same concept of what is
capable of protection applies to both the Software Directive and the Information Society
Directive. The judge found that WPL was in breach of the terms of the license in two
different ways. Second, he held that WPL had used the Learning Edition for purposes that
were not "non-production" purposes. WPL obtained copies of the Learning Edition under
license, but used it in ways which fell outside the scope of the licenses. The judge rejected
SAS Institute's argument that WPL was not a lawful acquirer of the license.
Conclusion:The appeal is dismissed.

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