A company that owns software of auxiliary programming services for mainframe computers discovered that a former employee begun competing with it by using a similar software.
The Labor Court accepted the claim for copyright infringement by copying. Although the copyright protection of computer software derives from its definition as a literary work, this does not limit the protection to copying the source code only. Copyright in computer software also extends to the characterization and design stages prior to writing the code and is also granted to the look, structure, order and more, and all of these are protected from infringement through copying. Here, while there are differences between the codes of the programs, at the same time there is great similarity in design, capabilities and the look and feel between the programs which constitute a copy of these elements in the company's software. Therefore, the employee infringed upon the company's copyrights and may not use the software.