Apple Computer, Inc. v Mackintosh Computers Ltd.

Apple Computer, Inc. v Mackintosh Computers Ltd.
Copyright Act , R.S.C. 1970, c. C-30

Apple Computer, Inc. v Mackintosh Computers Ltd. [1990] 2 S.C.R. 209, is a

was a reproduction that did not alter the copyright protection of the original work.

lmpact=Background

The defendant Mackintosh Computers Ltd. was a manufacturer of unlicensed Apple II+ clones that were capable of running software designed for Apple II+ computers. At issue in this case were the Autostart ROM and Applesoft programs embedded in the computer chips of Apple's computers.

At trial, the defendants conceded that they copied the chips in question by burning the contents of Apple's ROM chips into their own

was copyrightable under the Copyright Act as literary works. However, the defendants argued that they had not infringed Apple's copyright in the assembly code because they had copied only the contents of the ROMs in question.

The trial judge found that the software burned into Apple's ROMs were both a translation and reproduction of the assembly language source code, thus were protected by s. 3(1) of the Copyright Act.

The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Two of the appellate judges held that the object code was a reproduction of the assembly code, while the third held that the object code could be considered either a translation or a reproduction, both protected by copyright.

Ruling

The Supreme Court held that the machine code embedded in the Apple ROM chips was an exact reproduction of the written assembly code, and as such were protected by s. 3(1) of the Copyright Act. The court further rejected the argument that the machine code fell under the

, holding that the programs were a form of expression.

The Supreme Court declined to follow the case of

, which had virtually identical facts. In that case, the court held that the chips contained a "sequence of electrical impulses" which could not be subject to copyright.

Aftermath

Not long after the case, the

Copyright Act of Canada

was amended to explicitly include software as a "literary work" within the Act.

See also

• Apple Inc. litigation
• Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F.2d 1240 (3d Cir. 1983), a similar case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Computer Edge Pty. Ltd. v. Apple Computer, Inc. (1986), 65 A.L.R. 33, a similar case heard by the High Court of Australia
• International Business Machines Corporation v. Computer Imports Ltd., [1989] 2 NZLR 395, a similar case heard by the High Court of New Zealand

References

External links

• Full text of Supreme Court of Canada decision available at LexUM and CanLII