Baystate Technologies Vs. HLB Technologies: A Copyright Infringement Essay.

Who is the plaintiff?

1.Who is the PLAINTIFF?
-Harold L. BOWERS (HLB Technology).
2.WHO IS THE DEFENDANT?  
-BAYSTATE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
3.What Is a “Declaratory Judgement? Why Is The Plaintiff Asking The Court To Give a Declaratory Judgment?

-A declaratory judgment is a court-issued judgment that defines and outlines the rights and obligations of each party in a contract.
-Mr. Bowers filed counterclaims for copyright infringement, patent infringement, and breach of contract.
4.What is “COUNTERCLAIM” WHAT IS THE DEFENDANTS COUNTERCLAIM?

-A claim by a defendant opposing the claim of the plaintiff and seeking some relief from the plaintiff for the defendant. counterclaim may be made by any defendant against any plaintiff or plaintiffs
-In general a counterclaim must contain facts sufficient to support the granting of relief to the defendant if the facts are proved to be true. These facts may refer to the same event that gave rise to the plaintiff's Cause of Action or they may refer to an entirely different claim that the defendant has against the plaintiff. Where there is more than one party on a side, a.

-Baystate counterclaim where: 1- Their products do not infringe the ′514 patent. 2- The ′514 patent is invalid. 3- The ′514 patent is unenforceable.

5.WHAT IS REVERSE -ENGINEERING?

-Is when software engineer disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a product or Software) to discover the concepts involved in manufacture usually in order to produce something similar.

6.WHAT IS A SHRINK-WRAP LICENCE?

-Shrink wrap license: is an end user agreement (EULA) that is enclosed with software in plastic-wrapped packaging. Once the end user opens the packaging, the EULA is considered to be in effect. There are some concerns about the legality of an agreement that the user cannot examine prior to purchase.

7.SUMMARY
-Baystate Technologies, Inc ("Baystate") and HLB Technology ("Bowers") were competing companies which created add-ons that interacted with a computer aided design (CAD) program known as CADKEY.
-Bowers was the patent holder of a system called (Cadjet) that simplified interfacing with CAD software, which he began to license commercially 

-In 1989. Bower's initial software offering was later combined with a product called (Geodraft) that was produced by George W. Ford that inserted tolerances compliant with ANSI for features in a CAD design. Together, these products were marketed as Designer's Toolkit. The Designer's Toolkit was sold with a shrink-wrap license that prohibited reverse engineering.

-Baystate sold competing CADKEY tools including Draft-Pak version 1,2 and Baystate acquired a copy of Bowers' Designer's Toolkit, and three months later, Baystate released version 3 of Draft-Pak which substantially overlapped with the features offered by Designer's Toolkit.

-In 1991, Baystate sued Bowers seeking declaratory judgement that Baystate's products do not infringe on Bowers' patent and the patent is invalid, plus the patent is unenforceable. 
-Bowers filed counterclaims for copyright infringement, patent infringement, and breach of contract, contending that Baystate had reverse engineered Designer's Toolkit. At court, expert testimonial revealed "evidence of extensive and unusual similarities" between Draft-Pak and Designer's Toolkit, supporting Bowers' claim that Baystate had reverse-engineered a copy of his software.
- The District Court of Massachusetts concluded that Bower's was entitled to damages, finding that the shrink wrap license tied to Bowers' software preempted any fair use case for reverse engineering as allowed by Copyright law. 

8.WHAT WAS THE DECISION IN THIS CASE?
-The district courts jury of Massachusetts awarded Bowers damages on three of his claims:
1- $232,977 on the patent infringement claim 
2- $1,948,869 on the copyright infringement claim 
3- $3,831,025 on the breach of contract claim

Question: Who is the plaintiff?

In the year 1991, Baystate Technologies Inc, a business organization sued Harold L. Bowers (HLB) Technologies. HLB filed counterclaims against Baystate and it became the famous case related to copyrights infringement so Harold L. Bowers is the plaintiff in this case.

Question 2. who is the defendant?

According to the information mentioned above, it can easily be inferred that Baystate Technologies is the defendant in this case. It has to defend itself from the allegations put over it by HLB technologies. This case dealt with a very important question that whether Shrink-Wrap license is preempted by copyright law (Atkinson, 2014).

Question 3. What is a ‘declaratory judgment’? why the plaintiff is asking the court to give declaratory judgment?

A declaratory judgment is issued by the relevant legal institution to define the rights of each party in a contract. As this is the case of copyright infringement, the plaintiff is asking the court to give the declaratory judgment which can work in its favor.

Question 4. What is the counterclaim? What is the defendant’s counterclaim?

In any case, when the defendant opposes the claims of plaintiff and demands certain kind of relief from the plaintiff, it is said that the defendant has applied for the counterclaim. In this case, HLB put 3 allegations on Baystate: breach of contract, patent infringement, and copyright infringement. So Baystate made counterclaims against these allegations. Baystate asserted in court that its products do not infringe the ‘514 patent. In addition to this, it claimed that ‘514 patent is invalid and unenforceable. These 3 counterclaims by Baystate became the tools to defend itself in court. The case revolved around these claims and counterclaims made by respective parties (Cvetkovski, 2013).

It is to be noted that counterclaim can be filed against the facts which became ‘cause of action’ by the plaintiff. In addition to this, the counterclaim can be against the facts indifferent to the cause of action of the plaintiff. But, the counterclaim must support the provision of grant relief if the allegations are proved true.

Question 5. what is reverse engineering?

Reverse engineering is the act of disassembling the software and modifying it slightly to use it as a new patent product. If it is proved that an engineer has used the reverse engineering method to get the patent, legal action can be taken against his or her. Reverse engineering is illegal in international courts also.

Question 6. What is the Shrink-Wrap License?

There are two terms in the technological field viz. Shrink-Wrap license and clickwrap agreement. Both are similar to some extent but have considerable differences so that there is no ambiguity (Gilchrist, 2018). Shrink-wrap license is basically an end user agreement (EULA) packed along with the software in a plastic wrap. It comes into effect as soon as the end user opens it. There are some legal issues related to access of the agreement by the end user so some manufacturers put an onscreen version. The end user must agree to its policy before installation is done. This onscreen version is known as clickwrap agreement (Jell, 2012).

 Question 7.

As mentioned above, this is the case between two technical corporate giants: Baystate Technologies and HLB Technologies. Both were in competition with each other. These companies used to create add-ons that interacted with CADKEY, a Computer Aided Design (CAD). The Bowers was the owner of Cadjet, a system used to simplify the interface with CAD. Bowers was using his rights of patent very well; he began the licensing of this system commercially.

In 1989, a product named as Geodraft was formed by George W. Ford; draft inserted some new features and the combined use of Cadjet and Geodraft came to be known as Designer’s toolkit.  This toolkit was marketed and sold successfully. But this kit was sold with shrink-wrap agreement that forbids reverse engineering. It was done to prevent the infringement of the patent of Bowers by the competitors by doing the slight modification in the product or without having the real invention.

Baystate got designer’s toolkit and after some time released a new product under the name of version 3 of Draft-Park. There was considerable similarity between Draft-Pak and designer’s toolkit. Baystate, in 1191 sued Bowers and sought a declaratory statement by the court that Draft-Pak product made by Baystate do not infringe on Bower’s patent. It also claimed that this patent is invalid and unenforceable. In retaliation to this, Bowers filed a counterclaim and put the allegation of reverse engineering on Baystate (Hübel, 2012). Bowers claimed that because of reverse engineering, Baystate is able to sell the same product with slight modification in the market. Bowers made the claims of copyright infringement, patent infringement and breach of contract.

This case was decided by the court of Massachusetts. The jury gave the verdict in favor of bowers. It found the Baystate culprit of reverse engineering and made it liable to pay compensation to HLB technologies. Thus, Bowers won the case and shrink- Wrap agreement was considered valid. Reverse engineering was considered illegal for which Baystate had to pay compensation to HLB technologies.

Question 8. What was the decision in this case?

It is already mentioned in answer number 7 that Baystate lost the case and had to compensate for the act of reverse engineering. Here is the amount of compensation paid by it-  $232,977 for the patent infringement, $1,948,869 on the copyright infringement claim and  $3,831,025 for the breach of contract (Fitzgerald, 2015). The jury decided in favor of innovation. The patent inspires the individual to invent new products. The creativity and innovation were maintained by the court of Massachusetts. The ruling became an example for all the related copyright and patent infringement cases in future. Reverse engineering was considered invalid and the culprit was made to compensate the loss accrued to the actual patent holder.

Atkinson, B. F. (2014). A Short History of Copyright. Springer.

Cvetkovski, T. (2013). Copyright and Popular Media. Springer.

Fitzgerald, B. G. (2015). Copyright Perspectives. Springer.

Gilchrist, J. F. (2018). Copyright, Property and the Social Contract. Springer.

Hübel, A. S. (2012).