Copyright Infringement Case

Date: June 28, 1990 • Location: Rome, Italy

Paperback Software, a company founded by Adam Osborne, was found guilty of copyright infringement for using Lotus 1-2-3's look-and-feel interface in its own spreadsheet program.

Paperback Software International Ltd. was a software company founded in 1983 by Adam Osborne to manufacture discount software such as word processor Paperback Writer and related spell checker Paperback Speller, spreadsheet VP-Planner, database VP-Info, and the VP-Expert artificial intelligence software. VP-Planner was developed by James Stephenson of Stephenson Software Ltd. VP-Expert was developed by Brian Sawyer. The company was headquartered in Berkeley, California.