Conservancy Joins in Cisco v. Arista Amicus Brief

[Software Freedom Conservancy]

URL: <https://sfconservancy.org/news/2018/jan/03/cisco-v-arista/>

Software Freedom Conservancy is pleased to announce that it has joined
GitHub, Mozilla Corporation, and Engine Advocacy in an amicus brief for
the Cisco v. Arista case. In the brief, we argue against extending
copyright law unduly to ideas and functionality embodied in software —
namely, that imitating command-line interfaces should not alone
constitute copyright infringement.

The case, which Cisco appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit, considers whether a defense called “scènes à faire”
should allow Arista Networks, Inc. to create a command-line interface
that operates similarly to an interface developed by Cisco Systems, Inc.
The lower court found, in a jury trial, that the defense was
appropriate. Now, Cisco challenges that finding as a legal matter in
their appeal.

In the amicus brief, we and the joined amici argue that the public
interest is well-served by allowing the scènes à faire affirmative
defense to apply to copyright infringement with respect to software
command-line interfaces. Even though FOSS licenses, such as copyleft,
defend software freedom, the public interest is not served if copyright
restrictions extend too far. Many software freedom projects, including
Conservancy’s own projects, must imitate or interoperate with
proprietary software via the command-line. Users deserve this
functionality and should not need explicit copyright permission to do so.

If you’re interested in reading and learning more about this issue, you
can read the amicus brief at
<https://sfconservancy.org/docs/2018-01-03_Arista_amicus-brief.pdf>. Our
Distinguished Technologist, Bradley M. Kuhn, has written a blog post
about the brief at
<https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2018/jan/03/cisco-v-arista-amicus-brief>.
We’d like to thank the other amici and Marcia Hofman of Zeitgeist Law PC
for their work on this.

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