Engenium Solutions v. Symphonic Techs.

In a claim of literal infringement of software a court uses a filtration-comparison analysis rather than the abstraction-filtration-comparison test used in non-literal software copyright claims.

Opinion (Ellison): Kartik Shetty and Steve Carr formed Engenium in 2006. Carr developed Engenium Scheduling Workbench (Workbench) while working for Engenium. Workbench is a scheduling and maintenance software program, which is compatible with SAP. In 2010, Carr resigned from Engenium after forming Symphonic. Symphonic developed a scheduling software called Harmonix, which is also compatible with SAP. Engenium filed suit, claiming, among other things, Symphonic infringed their Workbench copyrights when they created Harmonix. Engenium claimed literal infringement of the source code. The Court determined that the abstraction element of the abstraction-filtration-comparison analysis should not be used to determine substantial similarity in a literal infringement claim. The Court retained the filtration and comparison elements of the analysis. Using this analysis the Court found substantial similarity between the copyrightable elements in Workbench and Harmonix. The Court GRANTED Plaintiff’s Partial Motion for Summary Judgment.