Read the case below, analyze, answer the questions and justify your answer.

On June 28, 1990, an important decision was rendered with regard to a lawsuit between Lotus Development Corporation, the creator of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, and Paperback International, the creator of the VP-Planner spreadsheet. Lotus had sued Paperback International for infringement of its copyright on Lotus 1-2-3. Paperback had copied the entire menu structure of the Lotus 1-2-3 program. The manual of the VP-Planner even contained the following statement:

VP-Planner is designed to work like Lotus, 1-2-3, keystroke for keystroke . . .. VP Planners worksheet is a feature-for-feature work alike for the 1-2-3. It does micros. It has the same command tree. It allows the same kind of calculations, the same kind of numerical information. Everything 1-2-3 does, VP-Planner does.

Paperback, in turn, alleged that only the part of a computer program written in some computer language, such as C, is copyrightable. It argued that the more graphic parts of a program, such as the overall organization of the program, the structure of the programs command system, the menu, and the general presentation of information on the screen, are not copyrightable. Lotus countered by arguing that copyright protection extends to all elements of a computer program that embody original expression.

The judge ruled that even though the idea of an electronic spreadsheet is not copyrightable, the Lotus spreadsheet was original and nonobvious enough to be copyrightable, and that VP-planner had infringed on the copyright. Accordingly, District Judge Keaton ruled that VP-Planner had infringed on the Lotus copyright.

Questions:

a) Should Lotus 1-2-3 be protected by copyright and patent? (5 points)

b) Which are the ethical issues in this case? (2 points)