SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd.

 
APPEAL NO.
21-1542
OP. BELOW
DCT
OPINION
TBD
SUBJECT
Copyright
AUTHOR
TBD

Issue(s) Presented

1. “Where SAS holds multiple copyright registrations affording it a statutory presumption of validity, and where it is well-settled that a defendant contesting the protectability of copied material must present evidence that such material was unprotectable, did the district court err in finding that WPL satisfied its burden despite failing to present evidence that all of the SAS Material it copied was unprotectable?”

2. “In light of the district court’s previous conclusion that genuine issues of material fact precluded a summary judgment finding, was the district court’s ‘copyrightability’ determination substantively and procedurally flawed as (a) if it was a summary judgment decision, it did not find that no such issues existed viewing the facts in SAS’s favor; or (b) if it were a Rule 52 decision, there were no factual findings or legal conclusions that everything WPL copied was unprotectable?”

3. “Given that the SAS Material is creative, and it is undisputed that SAS had an unlimited number of options in creating it, including selecting the elements to include and their arrangement within and among the Input Formats and Output Designs, and given that SAS’s registrations afforded the SAS Material a presumption of validity, was the SAS Material WPL copied protectable?”

4. “Did the district court err in excluding SAS’s fact and expert witnesses’ testimony based on a legally erroneous view of the burden-shifting framework?”

Date
Selected Proceedings and Orders
January 13, 2022