Sega v. Accolade

Sega v. Accolade
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Full case name	Sega Enterprises Ltd. vs Accolade, Inc.
Argued	July 20, 1992
Decided	October 20, 1992
Citation	977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992)
Holding
Accolade's acts of reverse engineering Sega Genesis software to learn about its security systems and subsequent publishing of unlicensed Sega Genesis games are protected under the fair use doctrine of copyright law. Sega is held responsible for using its security system to place its trademark on Accolade's games.
Court membership
Judges sitting	Stephen Reinhardt, William C. Canby, Jr., Edward Leavy
Case opinions
Majority	Stephen Reinhardt
Laws applied
15 U.S.C. §§ 1114(1)(a), 1125(a) (Lanham Act); 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 106, 107, 117 (Copyright Act of 1976)[1]

Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applied American intellectual property law to the reverse engineering of computer software. Stemming from the publishing of several Sega Genesis games by video game publisher Accolade, which had disassembled Genesis software in order to publish games without being licensed by Sega, the case involved several overlapping issues, including the scope of copyright, permissible uses for trademarks, and the scope of the fair use doctrine for computer code.^[2]

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which ruled in favor of Sega and issued an injunction against Accolade preventing them from publishing any more games for the Genesis and requiring them to recall all the existing Genesis games they had for sale. Accolade appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit on the grounds that their reverse engineering of the Genesis was protected under fair use. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's order and ruled that Accolade's use of reverse engineering to publish Genesis titles was protected under fair use, and that its alleged violation of Sega trademarks was the fault of Sega. The case is frequently cited in matters involving reverse engineering and fair use under copyright law.