From: David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 04:45:15 +0800
To: "Peter D. Junger" <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: <v03007614ae16d4a73f54@[192.187.162.15]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 8:14 AM -0700 7/20/96, Peter D. Junger wrote:
>"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.

Important comment.

Further, as I understand it if an implementation is obvious to one
practiced in the art, one's ability to protect such an implementation is
also limited.

David