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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!elroy!mahendo!jplgodo!wlbr!scgvaxd!ashtate!dbase!tessler
From: tessler@dbase.UUCP (Steven Tessler)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Windows/Mac Copyrights
Message-ID: <343@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 88 19:43:32 GMT
References: <5480@well.UUCP> <4092@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1719@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <1454@csib.csi.UUCP> <7987@sol.ARPA> <4795@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> <1457@csib.csi.UUCP> <337@dbase.UUCP> <26342@cca.CCA.COM>
Reply-To: tessler@dbase.UUCP (Steven Tessler)
Organization: Ashton Tate Devlopment Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 21

In article <26342@cca.CCA.COM> dee@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) writes:
>The line between idea and express is by no means clear.  First of all, a

The line between an idea and an expression of an idea is distinguishable
in copyright law.

>on record where someone programmed a software package for a dental
>office in one language where they retained the copyright and licensed
>the use of the software.  The office then totally re-coded it in BASIC
>and proceeded to sell it but with the same general menu sequences, flow
>of control, data organization, etc.
>...The "expression" included the organization of the program and the
>"idea", which could not be copyrighted, was the general idea of a dental
>office package and the general services it offered.

The analysis of the logical/physical data flows of a business is not the 
the creation on an idea but rather the documentation of an existing system.
The automation idea is still an idea which cannot be copyrighted.
Only the expression of the idea is can be copyrighted!  

(Please cite the specific case to afford additional inquiry.)