District Court Case
Lotus filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on July 2, 1990, claiming that the structure of the menus was copyrighted by Lotus. The district court ruled that Borland had infringed Lotus' copyright. The ruling was based in part on the fact that an alternative satisfactory menu structure could be designed. For example, the "Quit" command could be changed to "Exit."
Borland immediately removed the Lotus-based menu system from Quattro Pro, but retained support for its "Key Reader" feature, and Lotus filed a supplemental claim against this feature. A district court held that this also constituted copyright infringement.
Read more about this topic: Lotus Dev. Corp. V. Borland Int'l, Inc.
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