Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F.2d 1240 (3d Cir. 1983), was the first successful attempt in a court of law in the United States to prove that computersoftware in electronic form (not visual) could be protected by copyright.
Franklin admitted that it had copied Apple's software but argued that it would have been impractical to independently write its own versions of the software and maintain compatibility, although it said it had written its own version of Apple's copy utility and was working on its own versions of other software. Franklin argued that because Apple's software existed only in machine-readable form, and not in printed form, and because some of the software did not contain copyright notices, it could be freely copied. The Apple II firmware was likened to a machine part whose form was dictated entirely by the requirements of compatibility (that is, an exact copy of Apple's ROM was the only part that would "fit" in an Apple-compatible computer and enable its intended function), and was therefore not copyrightable.
Initially, the district court found in favor of Franklin. However, the ruling was overturned in 1983 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which determined that computer software, including operating systems and system ROMs, could be protected by copyright. Furthermore, the court postulated that copyrightability of computer programs as literary works does not depend on whether they are delivered in object code or source code, or whether they are application programs or operating systems. Hence Apple was able to force Franklin to withdraw its clones by 1988. The company later brought non-infringing clones to market, but as these models were only partially compatible with the Apple II, and that the Apple II architecture was by this time outdated in any case, they enjoyed little success in the marketplace.
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