Appropriate and inappropriate legal protection of user interfaces and screen displays. V. How different forms of copyright protection interact with policy

For pt.IV see ibid., vol.9, no.6, p.84 (1989). The author considers which proposed regime of copyright protection for screen displays best serves the public policy requirements discussed earlier. Those requirements center on encouraging progress in the software field by providing incentives to innovators and investors while preserving the availability of utilitarian screen display techniques to other workers in the field. Three possibilities are evaluated: (1) conceiving the registered work as an integrated 'computer program' work, which is not just the code of the computer program but also its displays, results, software specifications, and general look and feel; (2) considering the screen display as an integral part of the code of the computer program or as inherent in it (the US Copyright Office policy); or (3) recognizing a screen display as a distinct category of copyrightable work, such as a pictorial work or an audiovisual work, separate from the code of the computer program.<
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