Does the Auto Key Lock infringe copyright in the computer program Widget C?
Dawson J was of the opinion that the two lower courts had considered too deeply the question of whether the two hardware devices were computer programs, holding that it is not necessary that the reproduction of a substantial part of a computer program should itself be a computer program within the Act. The evidence showed that the source of Widget C contained exactly the same table of 127 bits in decimal form as the 127 bit sequence in binary form in the Auto Key lock. “The Auto Key lock reproduces that look-up table in the EPROM which it uses. The EPROM contains a set of digits which is identical with the set of digits produced by the look-up table when read as Widget C reads it. In effect, both Widget C and the Auto Key lock contain the same look-up table”. The fact that the respondent copied the table indirectly was of no consequence; Copyright may be infringed by copying something which is a copy of the copyright work. The look-up table was definitely copied from the output of the
