Contract Law Legal, Ethical & Essay

The presiding judge disagreed with them and "commented that if reverse engineering was possible, then they should reverse engineer the alleged infringement to obtain evidence of infringement."

6. Analogies

The situation assumed in the first section of the paper, that of a software product which could or could not be reverse engineered by a customer, researcher or journalist, can be considered through the lens of other situations as well. For starters, take the case of the remote control. The gadget was created decades ago and along the years, it has become of vital importance for various activities (watching television, listening to music or operating machines). Given that the first manufacturer of remote controls would have been the only one with the right to produce it, the segment would have evolved at an extremely slow pace. Through reverse engineering however, numerous other producers began to manufacture the item and the customer is today able to choose from a wide variety of products those which best fit their needs.

The second example is that of Microsoft, the it giant. If the company's products came to be subjected to reverse engineering, the company would lose its prestige, its competitive position and consequently the money of the investors and the jobs of its employees.

The first situation presents the benefits of reverse engineering with the aid of a remote control analogy. The second sees the downside of RE through the analogy with Microsoft. These two analogies perfectly integrate in the current situation and legislation relative to reverse engineering. The reason behind this statement is that, while the analogies present different situations, they both lead to the same conclusion - the status of reverse engineering is still unstable and a wholly integrated stand has yet to be taken.

7. Conclusions and Recommendations

The current legislation has evolved significantly from its past stages, but it is still far from perfectly regulating the it industry. Reverse engineering is one of the topics which generated tumultuous debates. A clear law on allowing and prohibiting it has yet to be issued. Most times, it is up to the buyer and seller to stipulate their RE demands in an additional clause. When one of the parties breaks the agreement, the court decides based on the circumstances of each case. The courts often use the copyright laws to settle reverse engineering cases. Generally speaking, the buyer of the software application, the journalist or the researcher is able to break the RE ban imposed by the seller when the latter does not own a patent for the software application; when the RE process would not lead to the creation of a competitive product, or when the information contained in the initial project is necessary and not available in other sources.

The above statements are generally true within the United States, but most of the other countries have yet to address the matter of reverse engineering. The varying stands that each international player takes depend directly on the country's levels of technological development. Given then these diverse levels of technological advancements throughout the globe, the main recommendation is for reverse engineering to not be governed by the World Trade Organization, but by each individual player.

Harman, G.C., Di Penta, M., New Frontiers of Reverse Engineering, 2007 Future of Software Engineering, IEEE Computer Society

Samuelson, P., Scotchmer, S., the Law and Economics of Reverse Engineering, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 111, 2002

Zimmermann, P.R., Reverse Engineering: Dismantling and Customizing for the New Global Media Ecology, Afterimage, Vol. 34, 2006

Principles of the Law of Software Contracts, Council Draft No. 3, the American Law Institute, November 7, 2008

Mauk, J.E., the Slippery Slope of Secrecy: Why Patent Law Preempts Reverse-Engineering Clauses in Shrink-Wrap Licenses, William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 43, 2001

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about Reverse Engineering, Chilling Effects, http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi#QID195lastaccessed on February 4, 2009

The American Law Institute, 2008

Newby, T.G., What's Fair Here Is Not Fair Everywhere: Does the American Fair Use Doctrine Violate International Copyright Law? Stanford Law Review, Vol. 51, 1999

Reverse Engineering, Jenkins and Co.,…