Navitaire Inc v Easyjet Airline Co. & Anor

Copyright in a computer program protects the program’s expression, not its functionality, programming language or the ideas and principles underlying its interfaces. Observing software in operation and independently writing different code to reproduce its behaviour does not therefore infringe copyright in the original source code.

Individual command names and an informally accumulated command collection may also lack the qualities of copyright works. Character-based screen layouts embodying interface ideas were unprotected, but sufficiently original graphical user-interface screens and icons were artistic works. A database user may make copies necessary to access and use its data, but convenience alone does not satisfy the statutory requirement of necessity.

Navitaire owned copyright in OpenRes, an airline reservation system licensed to easyJet. BulletProof developed eRes as a replacement. Its source code, architecture and internal processing differed from OpenRes, to which BulletProof had no source-code access. It nevertheless reproduced much of OpenRes’s visible operation, including commands, screen responses and booking functions.

Navitaire alleged infringement through this “non-textual copying”, copying of graphical screens and icons, unauthorised alterations to the TakeFlight web module, and the extraction, migration and alleged reproduction of OpenRes database material. The court had to determine the copyright status of commands, interfaces, functional behaviour, database schemas and migration copies.

1. The claim succeeded only in limited respects. The general claims concerning commands, character-based screens, reports, business logic and reproduction of the database structure failed. Navitaire succeeded concerning copied graphical user-interface screens and icons, unauthorised TakeFlight alterations, and parts of the database migration and disclosure process.
2. Individual command names were not literary works. The syntax of the complex commands was implicit in code controlling the parser rather than stated as a distinct written work. More fundamentally, the defined command interface was a computer language. Article 1(2) of the Software Directive excluded from copyright the ideas and principles underlying program interfaces. That exclusion applied whether the command language was formally defined or could be identified only by observing the program’s behaviour.
3. The command collection was not a copyright compilation. It had accumulated as individual operational needs arose. It had no overall design or compiler, and the contributions of its different designers were distinguishable.
4. Independent software did not infringe merely because it reproduced the same visible behaviour and business functions. The defendants had not accessed or copied the claimant’s code. Once the unprotected interface features were disregarded, what remained was the business function of completing reservations. Protecting that function through literary copyright in the program would improperly extend copyright to functional effects.
5. The character-based VT100 layouts were tables expressing ideas underlying the interface and were unprotected. The graphical screens stood differently because the Software Directive concerned computer programs as literary works and did not remove relevant artistic copyright. Sufficient skill and labour had been used in arranging the graphical screens and drawing the icons. The copied graphical screens and eight icons infringed.
6. easyJet’s modifications and copies of TakeFlight exceeded the licence. No oral permission existed. Navitaire’s knowledge and inaction did not establish acquiescence because easyJet had not relied upon any representation or omission by Navitaire.
7. Database schemas could be copyright computer programs, while substantiality depended on quality in context rather than the proportion copied. The defendants had not copied the overall OpenRes database structure, although one history table had been copied. Under section 50D of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, using screens to identify the licensee’s stored data was necessary and permitted. Supplying ODBC links and using non-necessary migration copies infringed. A neutral-file migration technique could reasonably have been used, so the infringing migration caused no loss.

not stated in the judgment.