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516 U.S. 233

No 94-2003

Supreme Court of the United States · decided January 16, 1996

Lotus Development Corp. v. Borland International, Inc., 516 U.S. 233 (1996), is a United States Supreme Court case that tested the extent of software copyright. The lower court had held that copyright does not extend to the user interface of a computer program, such as the text and layout of menus. Due to the recusal of one justice, the Supreme Court decided the case with an eight-member bench split evenly, leaving the lower court's decision affirmed but setting no national precedent.

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Relies on Lindsay v. Beneficial Reinsurance Co. · Lotus Development Corporation v. Borland International Inc

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · 4–4 · Opinion by Per Curiam · Decided January 16, 1996

How this case has been cited

Cited by 81 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2022 · most notably Danjaq Llc Delaware Limited Liability Company v. Sony Corporation (2001), CMM Cable Rep, Inc. v. Ocean Coast Properties, Inc. (1996)

19 federal appellate · 29 district ·

3501996200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Henry B. Gutman argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Kerry L. Konrad, Jeffrey E. Ostrow, Arthur R. Miller, Neal D. Goldman, and Donald J. Rosenberg.

Gary L. Reback argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Michael Barclay, Susan A. Creighton, and Katherine L. Parks. *

* Morton David Goldberg, June M. Besek, Davis O. Carson, and Jesse M. Feder filed a brief for Digital Equipment Corp. et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Altai, Inc., by Susan Gertrude Braden; for the American Committee for Interoperable Systems et al. by Peter M. C. Choy and Paul Goldstein; for Computer Scientists by Ron Kilgard and Karl M. Tilleman; for the League for Programming Freedom by Eben Moglen and Pamela S. Karlan; for the Software Forum by Diane Marie O'Malley; for the Software Industry Coalition et al. by Thomas F. Villeneuve; for the Software Protection Committee of the Minnesota Intellectual Property Law Association by Steven W. Lundberg, Daniel J. Kluth, and Rudolph P. Hofmann, Jr.; for Copyright Law Professors by Pamela Samuelson; and for Peter S. Menell et al. by Mr. Menell, pro se.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the American Intellectual Property Law Association by Don W. Martens, Baila H. Celedonia, and Charles L. Gholz; for Economics Professors and Scholars by Joshua R. Floum; for Users Groups by Rex S. Heinke; and for Howard C. Anawalt, pro se.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT.

49 F.3d 807, affirmed by an equally divided Court.

JUSTICE STEVENS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

PER CURIAM.

¶1

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is affirmed by an equally divided Court.

¶2

JUSTICE STEVENS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

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