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Apple V. FranklinApple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp. was the first successful attempt in a court of law in the United States to prove that computer software could be protected by copyright. Franklin Computer Corporation introduced the Franklin Ace 100, a clone of Apple Computer's Apple II, in 1982. Apple quickly determined that substantial portions of the Franklin ROM and operating system had been copied directly from Apple's versions, and on May 12, 1982, filed suit. It cited the presence of some of the same embedded strings, such as the name "James Huston" (an Apple programmer), and "Applesoft," on both the Apple and Franklin system disks. Franklin admitted that it had copied Apple's software but argued that it would have been impractical to independently write its own versions of the software and maintain compatibility, although it said it had written its own version of Apple's copy utility and was working on its own versions of other software. Franklin argued that because Apple's software existed only in machine-readable form, and not in printed form, and because some of the software did not contain copyright notices, it could be freely copied. Initially, the district court found in favor of Franklin. However, the ruling was overturned in 1983 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (714 F.2d 1240 http://digital-law-online.info/cases/219PQ113.htm), which determined that computer software, including operating systems and system ROMs, could be protected by copyright, and Apple was able to force Franklin to withdraw its clones by 1988.
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