February 1, 2007 at 5:48 pm
if you design a database and then license your product which uses that schema to a client or vendor, is the schema itself protected by the same laws as your source code?
i'm sure that they can't just take your database design, copy it and start building their own product off the top of it without infringing on the rights of the original developer.
does anyone have any real world experience with this problem or know of court cases where an outcome has been decided?
thanks so much.
February 1, 2007 at 7:38 pm
I'm sure it's gonna depend on the license contract and what "they" did. Are you able to provide a little more details?
February 2, 2007 at 9:35 am
i'll use an example to illustrate what "they" did, but this is by no means an indicator as to what companies are involved in the dispute.
arcserve developed a backup product that is in two parts. there is the application source code and there is an arcserve database that gets installed on your sql server.
a reseller of arcserve decides that they want to enter the marketspace with a competing product, so they start by copying the database and then they reverse engineer the source code.
when their product is released it becomes obvious that they plagurized the database schema as all of the same tables exist in their new product, though some have been altered to support additional features.
i'm sure the contracts between the reseller and arc serve will protect arcserve from their own business partner developing a competing product but that's a different question.
where this gets confusing is that anyone can create their own front end software to hook up to a database. that is third party code and it happens all the time.
what i don't think can happen is that you package up arcserve's database schema and release it with your product as if you developed it yourself.
thanks for the response, i hope this makes my questions clearer.
February 2, 2007 at 11:20 am
I can't imagine the DB design not being protected in some way. It would seems to me to be like saying that a song is fully copyrighted but that you can use the refrain for free anywhere you want.
But that is my humble opninion. Comming from a guy with no training, nor experience with that kind of law.
February 5, 2007 at 11:40 am
this will turn into an interesting thread, I'm sure...
If you take my data and put it into a database structure, the data is still mine, right? So If I learn the schema and it's relationships, and then want to report agaisnt the data, or add enhancements, As long as it doesn't affect your functionality, that would be ok, right?
At our agency, we have a specific structure for the db, and clients create extra tables, or especially their own views to get the data out for reporting purposes, store related data our application doesn't use, etc.....I'd think that is allowed/expected. we have exclusions in our contracts, such as no triggers are allowed to be created (since a bad trigger might rollback an insert by our application)
But your example goes the step further...replacing my functionality with your own...or a new functionality alltogether...that's where the "reverse engeneering" portion of a contract comes into play. It's pretty standard verbiage that you can't examine the executables and reverse them, but examining the schema, and inferrring what the application must be doing....hmmm.
Some things, like a address/ contacts table, I wouldn't be surprised that people take an existing table and copy/enhance it... but the whole db, I would recon that's something a lawyer would love to bite at.
Lowell
February 5, 2007 at 12:17 pm
You have the rights you can enforce in court.
If someone copies your design and uses it as their own, you would have to be able to prove it was your design, that they copied it, and had no right to do that.
They might argue that they had never seen your database schema and just developed one that was similar.
They might argue that your design was a copy of an earlier design that was in the public domain.
You might spend a fortune trying to prove otherwise and fail.
February 5, 2007 at 1:07 pm
i appreciate your responses.
it's not difficult for us to prove that the database has been stolen.
what is difficult to prove, and should not be, is that the database is protected the same way our application code and executables are.
this is why i'm looking for anyone who's had a similar experience in court or arbitration.
the legal system is illequiped to handle technology cases. it's so rare that an anyone besides the developers involved actually understand what's going on and this includes the paid off "expert" witnesses with fancy cv's that do nothing but confuse everyone in the courtroom with their "techspeak" which just hides the fact that they have no idea what they're talking about and don't care so long as they get $150/hr to hang out and wear a suit for a few days.
in my experience the judge has always FORCED a settlement because he simply can't handle sitting through a trial he doesn't understand while the jury falls asleep.
when someone steals your years of hard work and tries to release a competetive product you have to step up. could you imagine not fighting it out in court and then they force you out of the market by stealing your business as well?
it will definetly a fortune...but it shouldn't have to. we should just be able to hold up the contract in one hand and a side by side comparrison of the database structures and say "there it is", but non-technical people like judges and arbitrators are easily confused...and swayed.
February 5, 2007 at 1:22 pm
I worked for a company that spent $4,000,000 on a patent enfringement case against a competitor and lost. They felt certain they had proved the case, but the grandmothers on the jury felt otherwise. The result was the beginning of the end for that company.
It is likely to be become literally life and death, so make sure it's a case you will win before you start.
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