A December 2025 summary-adjudication order in Software Freedom Conservancy v. Vizio narrows the case but leaves the central question intact: whether an ordinary purchaser can enforce open-source copyleft as a third-party beneficiary on the eve of an August 2026 trial.
The Ninth Circuit held that copying object code to study a program's unprotected functional elements can be fair use, securing reverse engineering as a tool for interoperability and competition.
The First Circuit held that the Lotus 1-2-3 menu command hierarchy is an uncopyrightable 'method of operation' under Section 102(b), a ruling left standing by an evenly divided Supreme Court.
The Ninth Circuit's December 2024 decision holds that software built to interoperate with a copyrighted program is not a derivative work without 'something more' — actual copying of protected expression.
