Re: Westlaw clone (Was: Re: Software to Block Ads)

Bob Stock <bstock[_at_]ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> Timothy Arnold-Moore <tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > You don't need `virtually identical' software on the server. You need
> > software on the substitute server which speaks the same protocol which
> > is very, very different. Ari did mention this.
> [snip]
> > The search engine could be implemented completely differently as long
> > as the query instructions could be translated into operations on the
> > new search engine.
>
> And I think that what would be passed to the server is a lot of different
> kinds of information, all of which would require software that could
> recognize it and be able to use it.

Yes. But this is a standard problem which software engineers solve every day. These communication protocols are usually pretty simple and transperant to people who build them on a regular basis.

> I'm looking at the opening screen of Westmate 6.30. Here are some of
> the changes that would have to be made:
>
> 1. the title bar
> 2. the Westlaw in the upper left
> 3. the Key Number Service button on the left
> 4. all the data provided in the center window
> 5. the choose this button for copyright in the lower right
> 6. the File menu
> 7. the Search menu
> 8. the Services menu
> 9. the Help menu
> 10. the toolbar

I don't use West because they don't give any coverage to non-US law (or at least non-US law that I care about) so I am not familiar with the interface but I do know a reasonable amount about object code and user interface design. If these are just strings in the object code, we have 10 string substitutions and not 1. If the text is somehow embedded in images, one simply has to point to a different image. These references are harder to find but not exactly difficult to change.

> Beyond that there are other screens and many, many dialogs, all of which
> would have to be changed if you want to eradicate any references to
> Westmate or Westlaw or any services that are proprietary (like KeyCite).

I would think that you would not want to omit references to Westmate as the software is still Westmate. In fact by doing so you would probably infringe West's trademark and possibly other rights.

What you would want to be omitting would be references to Westlaw and other information services for which you were providing a substitute service and thus avoid confusion about the source of those services.

This is actually the only reference you made to KeyCite mysteriously omitting my reference to the potential problems and possible solutions associated with West's numbering system. Maybe we could make this discussion a little more on topic by discussing whether an independent classification using the KeyCite numbers would infringe any of West's IP rights, in particular copyright.

> Plus, unless you could get permission from all the other services that
> are licensed to West (Shepard's, etc.), you would have to change those
> as well. The changes would be *extensive*.

That may be true but I believe that its possible (clearly you disagree). My post was merely defending Ari's claim that this was an interesting hypothetical to discuss.

> I could go on, but this really is beyond the scope of this list.

I'm more interested in discussing whether its legal, or more importantly how far you would have to go to make it legal which is much more on point to the list.

-- 
| Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B., B.Sc. (Hons)
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