United States District Court for the Central District of California
October 19, 2001
Full case name:
SoftMan Products Company, LLC v. Adobe Systems Inc., et al.
Citations:
171 F. Supp.2d 1075; 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17723; 45 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (Callaghan) 945
Prior history:
Preliminary injunction entered for plaintiff, 9-10-01
Subsequent history:
none
Holding
Plaintiff software company's product was sold rather than licensed to the defendant, who was therefore entitled to resell it in separate components. The defendant was not bound by the software "shrinkwrap license" (or End User License Agreement) because the terms of that license were never assented to. Preliminary injunction previously entered for the plaintiff was vacated, and a new injunction denied.
Adobe Systems contended in a counterclaim that the original plaintiff, SoftMan, infringed its copyright and violating the terms of Adobe's licenses by selling as individual units the software titles that were purchased from Adobe as a single boxed "Collection". The individual titles had their own cds.
Under the first-sale doctrine it is debatably legal to resell software; Adobe tried to maintain that SoftMan had not purchased any software but only a license (the EULA) which prohibits, among many things, reselling of their software. The Court decided that because of "the circumstances surrounding the transaction" that Softman actually had bought a copy of the software, not just a license as Adobe maintained, because as far as the purchaser is concerned the license is very similar to owning a copy in that it is paid for once for perpetual use of the software. The Court also found that SoftMan had not infringed on the EULA (even if it had been upheld) because SoftMan had never run the program. The EULA was only presented when the program was to be installed, it was not present on the packaging or as printed material.
The actual case from California Central Districts website PDF (http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/CACD/RecentPubOp.nsf/5738d25e31f54e3988256a8100701ebd/1c0109b1a49387b288256b48007a04cd/%24FILE/CV00-04161DDP.pdf)
A HTML version of the case [1] (http://www.linuxjournal.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=NS-articles/briefs&file=softman-v-adobe) or [2] (http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/articles/web/2001-11/5628/softman-v-adobe.html)
Adobe Systems Inc. was a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 2001.
Adobe Systems contended in a counterclaim that the original plaintiff, SoftMan, infringed its copyright and violated the terms of Adobe's licenses by selling as individual units the software titles that were purchased from Adobe as a single boxed "Collection".
Under the first-sale doctrine it is debatably legal to resell software; Adobe tried to maintain that SoftMan had not purchased any software but only a license (the EULA) which prohibits, among many things, reselling of their software.
Adobe claims that the EULA is enforceable against SoftMan because the boxes containing Adobe software (including Collections) clearly indicate that use is subject to the consumer's agreement to the terms contained in EULA inside.
Adobe's position in this action would be more akin to a journalist who claimed that ownership of the copyright to an article allowed him or her to control the resale of a particular copy of a newspaper that contained that article.
Adobe asserts that by unbundling Collections software and then re-shrinkwrapping them and distributing them as individual pieces of Retail software, SoftMan is using Adobe's trademarks in a manner calculated to mislead and to deceive consumers concerning the affiliation, connection, or association of SoftMan with the true owner of the Adobe trademarks.
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