Paperback Software

Paperback Software International Ltd. was a software company founded in 1983 by Adam Osborne to manufacture discount software such as word processor Paperback Writer and related spell checker Paperback Speller, spreadsheet VP-Planner,^[1][2] database VP-Info, and the VP-Expert artificial intelligence software. VP-Expert was developed by Brian Sawyer^[3] The company was headquartered in Berkeley, California.^[4]

Paperback Software International

Company type	Limited
Industry	Software engineering
Founder	Adam Osborne
Fate	Dissolved
Headquarters	United States

History

The company was found by a United States court to have infringed on copyright for reproducing the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program,^[5][6] even though they did use different source code.^{[7][8][9][10]} The loss of this lawsuit was the main cause for the foundering of the company and paved the way for future copyright law on computer software.^{[citation needed]}

Overview

Not only was VP Planner cheaper, it was regarded by some as better.^[11] Adam Osborne's US Paperback Software business folded following lengthy litigation with Lotus Software.^[12] The litigation began in 1987, when Lotus initially won a copyright claim in 1990 against Paperback Software.^[13] Lotus sued Borland over the latter's Quattro Pro spreadsheet^[14][15] but, after six years of litigation, lost the lawsuit. The court ruled that it is not copyright infringement to use the Lotus interface as a subset, but, by then, Paperback Software had folded, and Lotus 1-2-3 had faced intense competition from Microsoft Excel.

Legacy

VP-Info remains in use and continues to be available for download from public software archives, and through the Wayback Machine. VP-Info was revised and updated and re-published by SubRosa Corporation as the Shark database management application.^{[16][circular reference]} VP-Expert was the top-selling expert systems development tool, with over 120,000 units sold and site licenses at DuPont, Kodak, and the Wharton School of Business.