IPDuck: My Latest EFF Amicus Brief: SAS v. WPL

Monday, August 30, 2021

My Latest EFF Amicus Brief: SAS v. WPL

Today EFF filed the latest amicus brief I helped write, in SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd. The case involves the copyrightability of input formats and output designs of a statistical analysis program. In other words, things that have no business being anywhere near the subject of copyright protection.

EFF's blog post about the case and our brief is here.

1 comment:

digi BrandMarch 2, 2022 at 1:19 AM
That's Great, Novelty Assessment and Prior Art Search will also be useful.
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Why a Duck?

The "IP" part of this blog's title is self-explanatory -- the abbreviation for the shorthand term "intellectual property." But what to call the humor part of the name? It turns out that the duck is the funniest animal alive. A 2002 study confirms that jokes mentioning ducks are funnier than others.

If you think about it, that makes sense. Think of the funniest joke you know, and replace one of the characters with a duck. It instantly becomes even funnier. You might not even need the punchline. For example, which is funnier:
"A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar . . . "
-- OR --
"A priest, a rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar . . . "

And needless to say, "Weird Al" Yankovic's "I Want a New Duck" is MUCH funnier than Huey Lewis' "I Want a New Drug."