High Technology Jurisprudence: In Defense of Look and Feel Approaches to Copyright Protection
Carl Sundholm · Santa Clara Law Digital Commons (Santa Clara University) · 1992
This essay comments on current directions and issues in computer copyright litigation respecting the so-called "look and feel" approach taken by courts to the application of substantial similarity tests in determining copyright infringement of computer programs and audiovisual displays.The evolving case law still walks the classic copyright tightrope between the dialectic of the reward and protection of innovation in the field, on the one hand, and preventing the unwarranted monopolization of ideas which retard innovation, competition, and progress, on the other.Although the balancing of these opposing ideals by recent court decisions appears increasingly to favor the strengthening of copyright protection for computer programs and output as set out by the Whelan I and Broderbund 2 courts, the so-called "look and feel" approach embodied by these decisions has generated a great deal of vigorous attack and controversy which has clouded the value of the new integrative test.This essay speaks in defense of what its critics have characterized as the "look and feel" approach, the integrative approach to high technology jurisprudence.