Protecting user interfaces through copyright: the debate

This paper will provide an overview of the legal controversy about the extent of copyright protection that is appropriate for software user interfaces. The controversy reflects different views of how traditional principles of copyright law should be applied to software. After a brief introduction to copyright principles, the paper will set forth an argument for maximal copyright protection for software user interfaces, and then an argument for minimal copyright protection for user interfaces. Both arguments apply copyright principles; they simply draw on different parts of copyright doctrine in doing so. The paper does not aim to resolve the debate, but only to familiarize the user interface design community of the legal context in which the debate is taking place.