Copyright, Interfaces, and a Possible Atlantic Divide

• Author: Simonetta Vezzoso
• Position: PhD, University of Trento, Italy
• Pages: 153-161

Copyright, Interfaces, and a Possible Atlantic Divide

2012

153

2

Abstract: Recent copyright cases on both

sides of the Atlantic focused on important interop-

erability issues. While the decision by the Court of

Justice of the European Union in

SAS Institute, Inc.

v. World Programming Ltd.

assessed data formats

under the EU Software Directive, the ruling by the

Northern District of California Court in

Oracle Amer-

ica, Inc. v. Google Inc.

dealt with application program-

ming interfaces. The European decision is rightly cel-

ebrated as a further important step in the promotion

of interoperability in the EU. This article argues that,

despite appreciable signs of convergence across the

Atlantic, the assessment of application programming

interfaces under EU law could still turn out to be quite

different, and arguably much less pro-interoperabil-

ity, than under U.S. law.

Copyright, Interfaces, and a

Possible Atlantic Divide

by Simonetta Vezzoso, Trento*

PhD, University of Trento, Italy

© 2012 Simonetta Vezzoso

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This article may also b e used under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 Unported License, available at h t t p : //

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Recommended citation: Simonetta Vezzoso, Copyr ight, Interfaces, and a Possible Atla ntic Divide, 3 (2012) JIPITEC 153, para. 1.

A. Introduction

1

 -

rability refers mainly to the ability of information

technology products to communicate, i.e. to ex-

change signals and data. From a user’s perspective,

products or systems are considered to be interope-

rable if they can work together. Beyond IT markets,

assuring the compatibility of products with those of

other brands can also be essential in order to assure

the satisfactory working of competition processes.

2

Interoperability has obvious intrinsic value and,

therefore, it is in the interest of society to support

it. Seemingly, there are often private incentives at

work that induce undertakings to spontaneously

release the relevant interface information. For in-

stance, it can be in the interest of a platform owner

to share the rules of interconnection between her

core technological building blocks and the surroun-

ding ecology in order to promote the development

of sets of complementary products and services and,

by doing so, increase the overall attractiveness of the

platform. From the perspective of a business, deci-

sions about the desired level of interoperability are

both technology and market based, ultimately de-



to create and capture economic value. In this res-

pect, practices relating to interoperability can have

positive or negative effects on the level of healthy

competition, both infra- and interplatform.1 Intero-

perability within a single platform is also called ver-

tical interoperability, as opposed to the horizontal in-

teroperability across platforms. Of course, horizontal

interoperability is expected to have a decisive im-

pact on the level of interplatform competition, es-

pecially when users of one platform stick to it be-

cause they cannot move their data and applications

to another, “better” platform. The issue of vertical

interoperability, and the denial of it, relates to the

relationship between the platform owner and third

party developers.2

Keywords: Software Directive, Interoperability, Interfaces