Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessica Lares
In addition to the stuff on the Amazon store, I have about 10 additional Android ones, including a TI-83 emulator. 
On the iOS side, I have five third-party ones. 
... And I have a TI SOLAR sitting on my desk from the 80's.
This is pretty nice though. How does copyright even work for calculators? |
You can copyright a program's source code, but that applies only to that particular implementation. It's unlikely that the source is even remotely the same since they're running on different operating system and/or hardware. If you do a complete re-implication from scratch, that's perfectly legal. (Although it won't necessarily prevent you from getting sued. If a company sends a cease and desist, most people would just take the app down. Hiring a lawyer to defend yourself, even though the law is on your side, is
really expensive.)
There's also a possibility of trademark issues, as you can get trademarks for "trade dress". That's basically the look and feel of an item. If HP had a trade dress trademark on the calculator they could put a stop to it if they wanted to. I doubt they care all that much though, I can't see this app hurting the market for real HP calculators.