Editing Clean-room design (section)

== Examples ==

[[Phoenix Technologies]] sold its clean-room implementation of the IBM-compatible BIOS to various PC clone manufacturers.<ref name="cleanroom">{{cite web|url=http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/65532/Reverse_Engineering?pageNumber=1 |title=Reverse-Engineering |first=Mathew |last=Schwartz |date=2001-11-12 |access-date=2013-06-23 |publisher=computerworld.com |quote=To protect against charges of having simply (and illegally) copied IBM's BIOS, Phoenix reverse-engineered it using what's called a "clean room," or "Chinese wall," approach. First, a team of engineers studied the IBM BIOS—about 8KB of code—and described everything it did as completely as possible without using or referencing any actual code. Then Phoenix brought in a second team of programmers who had no prior knowledge of the IBM BIOS and had never seen its code. Working only from the first team's functional specifications, the second team wrote a new BIOS that operated as specified.}}</ref><ref name="Galler1995">{{cite book|author=Bernard A. Galler|title=Software and Intellectual Property Protection: Copyright and Patent Issues for Computer and Legal Professionals|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QACY2JCu4BUC&pg=PA130|year=1995|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-89930-974-3|page=130}}</ref> [[American Megatrends]] also sold its clean-room implementation of the IBM-compatible BIOS to various PC clone manufacturers.

Several other PC clone companies, including [[Corona Data Systems]], [[Eagle Computer]], and Handwell Corporation, were litigated by IBM for copyright infringement, and were forced to re-implement their BIOS in a way which did not infringe IBM's copyrights.<ref name=infoworld3>{{Citation | last = Caruso | first = Denise | title = IBM Wins Disputes Over PC Copyrights | newspaper = InfoWorld | pages = 15 | date = February 27, 1984 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=gy4EAAAAMBAJ&q=ibm%20wins%20disputes%20over%20pc%20copyrights&pg=PA15 | access-date = February 28, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/09/business/eagle-s-battle-for-survival.html|title=EAGLE'S BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL|first=David E.|last=Sanger|newspaper=The New York Times|date=9 June 1984}}</ref> The legal precedent for firmware being protected by copyright, however, hadn't been established until   
''[[Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.]]'', 714 F.2d 1240 (3rd Circuit Court 1983). 
The three settlements by IBM, and the legal clean-room PC BIOS designs of [[Compaq]] and [[Columbia Data Products]], happened before Phoenix announced, in July 1984, that they were licensing their own BIOS code. Phoenix expressly emphasized the clean-room process through which their BIOS code had been written by a programmer who did not even have prior exposure to Intel microprocessors, himself having been a [[Texas Instruments TMS9900|TMS9900]] programmer beforehand.<ref name="Inc.1984">{{cite journal|title=Phoenix Says Its BIOS May Foil IBM's Lawsuits|journal = PC Magazine: The Independent Guide to IBM-Standard Personal Computing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bwng8NJ5fesC&pg=PA56|date=10 July 1984|publisher=Ziff Davis, Inc.|page=56|issn=0888-8507}}</ref> As late as the early 1990s, IBM was winning millions of dollars from settling BIOS copyright infringement lawsuits against some other PC clone manufacturers like Matsushita/[[Panasonic]] (1987)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Matsushita, IBM settle BIOS copyright infringement dispute|journal = Computerworld: The Newspaper for IT Leaders|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SZ4AAehqfn0C&pg=PA67|date=2 March 1987|publisher=Computerworld|pages=67|issn=0010-4841}}</ref> and [[Kyocera]] (1993–1994), although the latter suit was for infringements between 1985 and 1990.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/02/business/company-news-japanese-company-is-sued-by-ibm-over-copyrights.html|title=COMPANY NEWS; Japanese Company Is Sued By I.B.M. Over Copyrights|first=Andrew|last=Pollack|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2 February 1993}}</ref><ref name="DavisOda1996">{{cite book|author1=Joseph W. S. Davis|author2=Hiroshi Oda|author3=Yoshikazu Takaishi|title=Dispute resolution in Japan|year=1996|publisher=Kluwer Law International|isbn=978-90-411-0974-3|pages=248–254}}</ref>

Another clean-room design example is [[VTech]]'s successful clones of the [[Apple II]] [[Read-only memory|ROM]]s for the [[Laser 128]], the only computer model, among dozens of Apple II compatibles, which survived [[litigation]] brought by [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer]]. The "Laser 128 story" is in contrast to the Franklin Ace 1000, which lost in the 1983 decision, ''[[Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.|Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corporation]]''. The previous PC "clone" examples are notable for not daring to fight IBM in court, even before the legal precedent for copyrighting firmware had been made.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.coolcopyright.com/cases/chp4/applefranklin.htm|title=A brief recap of the lawsuit| website=coolcopyright.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080703211930/http://www.coolcopyright.com/cases/chp4/applefranklin.htm|access-date=9 April 2021|archive-date=2008-07-03}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://internetlegal.com/impact-of-apple-vs-franklin-decision/|title=IMPACT OF APPLE VS. FRANKLIN DECISION By Rob Hassett|website=internetlegal.com|date=18 December 2012 |access-date=9 April 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801EFDE1039F937A3575BC0A964948260|title=Refusal of Apple's injunction request|newspaper=The New York Times|date=4 August 1982|access-date=9 April 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/franklin/making.pdf|title=The Making of a Computer by Perry Greenberg|website=classiccmp.org|access-date=9 April 2021}}</ref>

Other examples include [[ReactOS]], an [[GNU General Public License|open-source]] operating system made from clean-room reverse-engineered components of [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20197&p=142548&hilit=clean+room#p142548|title = A dumb hypothetical about the legality of someone documenting Windows XP - ReactOS Forum}}</ref> and [[Coherent (operating system)|Coherent]] operating system, a clean-room re-implementation of version 7 [[Unix]].<ref name="VF_2015">{{cite web|url=https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2015/01/08/coherent-sources-released-under-a-3-clause-bsd-license/|title=Coherent sources released under a 3-clause BSD license – Virtually Fun|website=virtuallyfun.com|date=8 January 2015 |access-date=20 September 2018}}</ref> In the early years of its existence, Coherent's developer Mark Williams Company received a visit from an AT&T delegation looking to determine whether MWC was infringing on AT&T Unix property.<ref>{{Cite newsgroup
|title=Re: Coherent
|author=Dennis Ritchie
|date=April 10, 1998
|newsgroup=alt.folklore.computers
|message-id=352DC4B7.3030@bell-labs.com
|url=https://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/8477ba2953351ee4
}}</ref> It has been released as open source.<ref name="VF_2015"/>