Autodesk Inc & Anor v Dyason

Autodesk Inc and Autodesk (collectively, "Autodesk") appealed to the High Court of Australia against a decision concerning alleged copyright infringement. The dispute involved Autodesk's claim that a program developed by Martin Patrick Dyason, Christine Dyason, and Peter Dyason ("the Dyasons") infringed their copyright in a computer program known as the "AutoCAD lock." Autodesk asserted that the Dyasons' program, referred to as "WIDGET.C," was the same as their lock program because they performed the same function.

The central legal issue before the High Court was to identify the copyright work and determine whether the Dyasons' program constituted an infringement of Autodesk's copyright. This required the Court to distinguish between the input to a device, the program itself, and the output produced by its operation. The Court also had to consider the significance of certain technical features, such as the "wraparound feature" and the nature of the input signals, in assessing copyright protection.

The High Court reasoned that the first step in any copyright infringement case is to identify the subject-matter protected by the Act, which is the copyright work. The Court found that the assertion that WIDGET.C and the AutoCAD lock were the same because they performed the same function was insufficient. Performing the same function merely meant that both devices produced the same output sequence when stimulated. The Court clarified that the "wraparound feature," where a string repeats itself, was not a substantial or consequential element that assisted the claim for protection, but rather an obfuscation of the underlying reality that the string simply repeated. Furthermore, the Court distinguished between the input to the lock, which it identified as voltage transitions, and "digital information," stating that voltage transitions simpliciter were not digital information, particularly in the context of the lock's operation. The Court noted that the lock could be stimulated by a battery alone, without being connected to a computer, highlighting that its response was to changes in voltage.