Founder Adam Osborne | ||
Paperback Software International Ltd. was a software company founded in the 1980s by Adam Osborne to manufacture discount software such as word processors and spreadsheets. The company was found guilty by a United States court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program, even though they did use different computer code. The loss of this lawsuit was the main cause for the foundering of the company and paved the way for future copyright law on computer software.
Not only was VP Planner cheaper, it was regarded by some as better. Adam Osborne's US Paperback Software business folded following lengthy litigation with Lotus Software. The litigation began in 1987, when Lotus initially won a copyright claim in 1990 against Paperback Software. When Borland's Quattro Pro spreadsheet was also sued, after six years of litigation Lotus lost the lawsuit. The courts agreed that it was not a copyright infringement to use the Lotus interface as a subset - but by then, Paperback Software had folded, and Lotus 1-2-3 had itself faced intense competition from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Excel.