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Semiconductor Chip Protection Act

Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984
Great Seal of the United States
Other short titles
  • State Justice Institute Act of 1984
  • Technical Amendments to the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982
  • Trademark Clarification Act of 1984
Long title An act to amend title 28, United States Code, with respect to the places where court shall be held in certain judicial districts, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial) SCPA
Nicknames Federal District Court Organization Act of 1984
Enacted by the 98th United States Congress
Effective November 8, 1984
Citations
Public law 98–620
Statutes at Large 98 Stat. 3335 aka 98 Stat. 3347
Codification
Acts amended Trademark Act of 1946
Titles amended
U.S.C. sections created 17 U.S.C. ch. 9 § 901 et seq.
U.S.C. sections amended 15 U.S.C. ch. 22 § 1051 et seq.
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the House as H.R. 6163 by Robert Kastenmeier (D-WI) on August 10, 1984
  • Committee consideration by House Judiciary, Senate Judiciary
  • Passed the House on September 24, 1984 (passed voice vote)
  • Passed the Senate on October 3, 1984 (passed voice vote) with amendment
  • House agreed to Senate amendment on October 9, 1984 (363-0)
  • Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on November 8, 1984

The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 (or SCPA) is an act of the US Congress that makes the layouts of integrated circuits legally protected upon registration, and hence illegal to copy without permission.

Prior to 1984, it was not necessarily illegal to produce a competing chip with an identical layout. As the legislative history for the SCPA explained, patent and copyright protection for chip layouts, chip topographies, was largely unavailable. This led to considerable complaint by U.S. chip manufacturers—notably, Intel, which, along with the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), took the lead in seeking remedial legislation—against what they termed "chip piracy." During the hearings that led to enactment of the SCPA, chip industry representatives asserted that a pirate could for $10,000 copy a chip design that had cost its original manufacturer upwards from $100,000 to design.

In 1984 the United States enacted the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 (the SCPA) to protect the topography of semiconductor chips. The SCPA is found in title 17, U.S. Code, sections 901-914 (17 U.S.C. §§ 901-914).

Japan and European Community (EC) countries soon followed suit and enacted their own, similar laws protecting the topography of semiconductor chips.

Chip topographies are also protected by TRIPS, an international treaty.

Although the U.S. SCPA is codified in title 17 (copyrights), the SCPA is not a copyright or patent law. Rather, it is a sui generis law resembling a utility model law or Gebrauchsmuster. It has some aspects of copyright law, some aspects of patent law, and in some ways, it is completely different from either. From Brooktree, ¶ 23:

The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 was an innovative solution to this new problem of technology-based industry. While some copyright principles underlie the law, as do some attributes of patent law, the Act was uniquely adapted to semiconductor mask works, in order to achieve appropriate protection for original designs while meeting the competitive needs of the industry and serving the public interest."

In general, the chip topography laws of other nations are also sui generis laws. Nevertheless, copyright and patent case law illuminate many aspects of the SCPA and its interpretation.


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