Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.
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''Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.'', 714 F.2d 1240 (
3d Cir. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a United States federal court, federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the United States district court, district courts for the following United Sta ...
1983), was the first time an appellate level court in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
held that a computer's
BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...
could be protected by
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
. As second impact, this ruling clarified that
binary code A binary code represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often "0" and "1" from the binary number system. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, also ...
, the machine readable form of software and firmware, was copyrightable too and not only the
human-readable A human-readable medium or human-readable format is any encoding of data or information that can be naturally read by humans. In computing, ''human-readable'' data is often encoded as ASCII or Unicode text, rather than as binary data. In most c ...
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
form of software.Impact of Apple vs. Franklin Decision
/ref>
Franklin Computer Corporation Franklin Electronic Publishers, Incorporated (formerly Franklin Computer Corporation) is an American consumer electronics manufacturer based in Burlington, New Jersey, founded in 1981. Since the mid-1980s, it has primarily created and sold hand-he ...
introduced the Franklin Ace 1000, a
clone Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...
of
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
's
Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...
, in 1982. Apple quickly determined that substantial portions of the Franklin
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
and
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
had been copied directly from Apple's versions, and on May 12, 1982, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It cited the presence of some of the same embedded
string String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
s, such as the name "James Huston" (an Apple programmer), and "Applesoft," on both the Apple and Franklin system disks. Franklin admitted that it had copied Apple's software but argued that it would have been impractical to independently write its own versions of the software and maintain compatibility, although it said it had written its own version of Apple's copy utility and was working on its own versions of other software. Franklin argued that because Apple's software existed only in machine-readable form, and not in printed form, and because some of the software did not contain copyright notices, it could be freely copied. The Apple II
firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
was likened to a machine part whose form was dictated entirely by the requirements of compatibility (that is, an exact copy of Apple's ROM was the only part that would "fit" in an Apple-compatible computer and enable its intended function), and was therefore not copyrightable. The district court found in favor of Franklin. However, Apple appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which, in a separate case decided three days after Franklin won at the lower level, had determined that both a program existing only in a written form unreadable to humans (e.g. object code) and one embedded on a
ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...
were protected by copyright. (See '' Williams Elec., Inc., v. Artic Int'l, Inc.'', 685 F.2d 870 (1982)). The Court of Appeals overturned the district court's ruling in ''Franklin'' by applying its holdings in ''Williams'' and going further to hold that operating systems were also copyrightable. The Court remanded the case to the District Court for a determination regarding whether Apple's operating system was one of a very limited number of ways to achieve its function. If it was, then Franklin would not be liable for copyright infringement. The parties settled. Apple was able to force Franklin to withdraw its clones by 1988. The company later brought non-infringing clones to market, but as these models were only partially compatible with the Apple II, and as the Apple II architecture was by this time outdated in any case, they enjoyed little success in the marketplace. IBM believed that some
IBM PC clone IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...
makers such as
Eagle Computer Eagle Computer of Los Gatos, California, United States, was an early microcomputer manufacturing company. Spun off from Audio-Visual Laboratories (AVL), it first sold a line of popular CP/M computers which were highly praised in the computer mag ...
and
Corona Data Systems Corona Data Systems, later renamed Cordata, was an American personal computer company. It was one of the earliest IBM PC compatible computer system companies. Manufacturing was primarily done by Daewoo of Korea, which became a major investor in t ...
similarly infringed on its copyright, and after ''Apple v. Franklin'' successfully forced them to stop using the BIOS. The
Phoenix BIOS Phoenix Technologies Ltd is an American company that designs, develops and supports core system software for personal computers and other computing devices. The company's products commonly referred to as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or firm ...
in 1984, however, and similar products such as AMI BIOS, permitted computer makers to legally build essentially 100% PC-compatible clones without having to reverse engineer the PC BIOS themselves. Another impact of the decision was the rise of the shrink-wrap
proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...
commercial business model, where before a
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
driven software distribution schema dominated.


See also

* Notable litigation of Apple Computer


References


External links


Text of the decisionAnother text of the decision
{{USCopyrightActs Apple II family United States copyright case law Apple Inc. litigation United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases 1983 in United States case law BIOS