Paperback Software International

Paperback Software International Ltd. was a software company founded in the 1980s by Adam Osborne to manufacture discount software such as spreadsheet (VP-Planner), database (VP-Info) and information management (VP-Expert) software. The company was found guilty by a United States court of copyright violation for copying the appearance and menu system of Lotus 1-2-3 in its competing spreadsheet program, even though they did use different computer code.[1][2][3][4] 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.

Not only was VP Planner cheaper, it was regarded by some as better.[5] Adam Osborne's US Paperback Software business folded following lengthy litigation with Lotus Software.[6] The litigation began in 1987, when Lotus initially won a copyright claim in 1990 against Paperback Software.[7] Lotus sued Borland over the latter’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet[8][9] 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.

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.[10]