From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 01:24:57 +0800
To: "Bill Olson (EDP)" <a-billol@microsoft.com>
Subject: Re: Reverse Engineer
In-Reply-To: <c=US%a=_%p=msft%l=RED-16-MSG-960719175739Z-29104@tide19.microsoft.com>
Message-ID: <199607201514.LAA10501@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


"Bill Olson (EDP)" writes:

: Reverse engineering is process of 'mimicking' the specifications of
: another product by copying the 'abstract interface' of it. Example: 
: 
: I write a desktop application that greatly increases employee
: productivity, and it sells like hotcakes. Another company decides that I
: am gaining too much market share with my product and decides to reverse
: engineer the product so that they can create a competing product. They
: hire an engineer who takes the program and analyzes the input and output
: with a detailed script of test patterns (heaven forbid he might even
: decompile the program and snoop). By doing so, he now has a complete
: product specification minus the implementation (i.e. how it works). He
: then takes the product specification and gives it to another engineer
: (actually it's done through 'clean' liaisons) who then creates a product
: that does the exact same thing as mine--but with a different
: implementation process. Because the product copies the specification and
: not the implementation, it does not infringe on copyrights or patents.

Good explanation.  But note that reverse engineering is not a way of
getting around patent violations.  It only works to protect oneself from
copyright violations, since a reverse-engineered product is not
(arguably) a copy of the original.  It is also useful when the actual
workings of the original, or the way the original is made, is a (trade)
secret.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu