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Legality of utilizing software feature

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Siccest16

Junior Member
hello I live in Michigan
There is a company that provides a service for my employer,i saw what it is and hes paying way to much for it, i know exactly how their company is doing what its doing, so practically i want to replicate one feature that they have, the feature is an email template that is sent out to customers that just has hyperlinks for yes or no answers, i want to do this for my employer for half the cost hes paying right now, hes interested but i want to make sure this is legal, of course i wont be copying the text, or design, i will only be rewording everything, with a different photo, the only thing that will be the same is the hyperlink function but even that will be only text and not a clickable photo like in the current emails. i want to sell this to him and some other businesses in this niche,but i read the contract they signed and it says my employer 'shall not permit a third party to modify,translate,transform,decompile,or reverse engineer any proprietary materials'. I read that for patents you can attempt to 'Claim that the idea is not novel and is an obvious step for anyone experienced in the particular field or Make a subtle change and claim that the changed product is not protected by patent' even though this is not patented, would this apply since its such a basic concept of emailing a satisfaction survey with hyperlinks, even though i am an employee of the person who signed the contract? is this illegal? if not any suggestions on a loophole? thanks for your help
 


adjusterjack

Senior Member
Sounds like infringement to me. If not infringement, then certainly breach of contract.

Your employer needs to consult an intellectual property attorney because he is the one who will be sued for infringement by his employee.

Tell him that and see what happens.
 

Siccest16

Junior Member
Sounds like infringement to me. If not infringement, then certainly breach of contract.

Your employer needs to consult an intellectual property attorney because he is the one who will be sued for infringement by his employee.

Tell him that and see what happens.
But Im only related to the contract as a 3rd party, and i didnt reverse engineer it! I only saw what they were paying for, and showed them i could do the same thing, i knew it was using hyperlinks. So i guess it boils down to, if me seeing their product, knowing how they're doing it, and replicating hyperlink functions, is "reverse engineering".
 

quincy

Senior Member
hello I live in Michigan
There is a company that provides a service for my employer ... so practically i want to replicate one feature that they have ...

... i wont be copying the text, or design, i will only be rewording everything, with a different photo, the only thing that will be the same is the hyperlink function but even that will be only text and not a clickable photo like in the current emails ...

... the contract they signed ... 'shall not permit a third party to modify,translate,transform,decompile,or reverse engineer any proprietary materials'. ...
Your questions are not easy ones to answer on a forum, Siccest16, as they touch on several different areas of the law. You potentially have copyright issues, patent issues, trade secret issues, contractual issues and business practices issues that need exploring.

Reverse engineering in and of itself is generally not illegal. You can legally purchase something and take it apart to analyze its components (absent any agreement to the contrary). It is what you do next with what you learn from your examination that tend to create legal problems.

After a brief search, I found two sites that provide fairly easy-to-understand overviews of the laws that should be considered before proceeding with your good-intentioned plan to reduce costs for your employer. The sites provide relevant case law. The first link is to the Electronic Frontier Foundation on "Coders' Rights" and the second link is to the Digital Law Online on "Copyright of Computer Programs."

https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq

http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise25.html

You and your employer will want to see an attorney in your area of Michigan for a personal review of the contract between your employer and the other company, and for a personal review of the specific software involved (which could include thorough research into what rights, if any, are legitimately held by the other company), and for a review of your plan to "replicate one feature" of the other company's software.
 
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