Court: Copyright law no bar to garage-door openers

Long Island Business News, Sep 10, 2004 by Ken Schachter

In an open-and-shut case, a federal appeals court has ruled that the six-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act cannot be used to bar the manufacture of replacement garage-door openers.

The law was passed by Congress to halt copyright infringers on the Internet, but it includes an anti-circumvention clause. The Chamberlain Group, a maker of garage-door openers, cited the clause in claiming that in making replacement garage-door openers, Skylink Technologies had given users unauthorized access to copyrighted software.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, affirmed the summary judgment of a lower court in dismissing the claims.

Joining with Skylink in fighting the case were the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at Boalt Hall School of Law, UC Berkeley and Consumers Union.

The Consumers Union brief warned that Chamberlain's reading of the law would let producers of consumer goods assert control over who can sell aftermarket parts for their products and which aftermarket products their customers can use.

Under those conditions, the brief added, it is consumers who will pay the price - literally.