Headlines in Tech news of the week
Biden Administration issues Executive order on Ensuring Robust Consideration of Evolving National Security Risks by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
…In short, the US is tightening up on national security and strengthening self-sufficiency.
It’s not a new legislative measure, but the Executive Order (E.O.) gives guidance for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in reviewing national security risks – there is no change to the CFIUS powers or the review process. Rather it builds on the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA), under which the government increased scrutiny over foreign investments which concern critical technologies and infrastructure.
It’s worthwhile taking a look at what the E.O. deals with because it gives us a good summary of what the US is most concerned about strategically and economically for the coming years and decades.
The E.O. directs the Committee to consider five specific sets of factors:
- A given transaction’s effect on the resilience of critical U.S. supply chains that may have national security implications, including those outside of the defense industrial base – eg. looking at
concentration of control by the foreign person in a given supply chain, and how diversified that supply chain is.
- A given transaction’s effect on U.S. technological leadership in areas affecting U.S. national security, including but not limited to microelectronics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and biomanufacturing, quantum computing, advanced clean energy, and climate adaptation technologies [overlapping with UK’s NSIA – as to which see below] – note that this is not a pure national security issue; it concerns the US maintaining pole position when it comes to emerging technologies too.
- Industry investment trends that may have consequences for a given transaction’s impact on U.S. national security – even where the investment may appear to be a limited threat – this is likely to cause uncertainty on deals and so businesses may be better off reporting to CFIUS at an early stage.
- Cybersecurity risks that threaten to impair national security – this may well be the case where the investment is made by a foreign entity into widely used software or operating systems which support critical services and infrastructure.
- Risks to U.S. persons’ sensitive data – clearly getting hold of sensitive data of US citizens (which will include public figures and military personnel) could seriously undermine security, which enable foreign actors to carry out surveillance, blackmail etc.
Note that the UK implemented the National Security and Investment Act, in which certain transactions (including restructuring and re-organisations, even within the same corporate group) need to be reviewed by the government where the target entity has activities in 17 defined areas – all of which are technically advanced areas (such as AI). A summary can be gleaned here. And on a similar matter…
Pressure on Biden to list YMTC on the blacklist
…Apple’s memory supplier YMTC needs to go on the blacklist, says US lawmakers as reports revealed that it was selling memory chips to Huawei, which may mean that the company has violated the US Foreign Direct Product Rule. This Rule says that companies are prohibited from selling Huawei with technology made in the US (the question is did YMTC know the destiny of their chips?).
Artificial Intelligence
Israeli AI company D-ID releases AI which helps you make videos from a single image of a person
…suppose a company were to create a promotional video by a busy CEO. It can upload the CEO’s image, provide it with text/audio and sentiment (eg. excited) and the program will automatically generate the video. It is also possible to select a language. Alternatively, you can pick an image of pre-created presenters, or premium paid customers can access premium pre-created presenters who are more expressive. There is scope for abuse so the company has put in some safeguarding measures such as:
- Filtering offensive language – using Microsoft Azure text moderation API
- Cannot use images of public figures – prevent deepfakes of public figures
- Cannot make political videos
Artist exposes backstory of influencers’ posts using technology
…What the artist was able to do is to show footages of influencers before they took the posts that got eventually uploaded, unbeknownst to the influencers. Take home point is that technology is around us everywhere and AI makes it possible to locate people (you don’t have to be an influencer) using limited data points. This is a work of one artist. Imagine what large corporations/ states would be able to do. The steps were:
- Record footage from EarthCam, which live streams videos from certain spots in cities around the world [who knew…]
- Scrape Instagram photos that were taken nearby from Influencers with significant followers
- Use AI and facial recognition to scan the videos and match it to influencers’ posts and identify the footage of influencers as they take the snapshot.
UK based Engineered Arts releases a video of a humanoid robot able to converse with people
…the YouTube clip is very impressive, albeit there is a small lag between conversations. It is not pre-scripted. The Robot uses a speech synthesizer and OpenAI’s GPT 3 (this uses deep learning to produce human-like text)
Harvard Medical School and Stanford University says its AI diagnostic tool CheXzero that can detect diseases on chest X-rays directly from natural-language descriptions contained in accompanying clinical reports is as accurate as human radiologists
…the report explains that the “step is deemed a major advance in clinical AI design because most current AI models require laborious human annotation of vast reams of data before the labeled data are fed into the model to train it….By contrast, the new model is self-supervised”. The code for the model has been made publicly available.
BigTech/ Data / Platforms
Competition
EU’s Second Highest Court (the General Court) largely confirms the Commission’s decision that Google was anticompetitive by imposing restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile devices and network operators
…Essentially, Google compelled Android device makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome browser apps, among other things.
General Court considered it appropriate to impose a fine of €4billion on Google (a little less than what the EU Commission had ordered) – largest fine levied against a company. Google can appeal to EU’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). According to the EU Commission 80% of smartphones in 2018 are Android (note that Apple overtook Android in the US this month, accounting for over 50% if the market – one commentator said this was akin to a premium brand, like a Porsche being the most popular car maker – it’s a bit of a stretch, but it is nevertheless remarkable). Further detail on the various restrictions are explained in the Delving Deeper section, below.
Note that the upcoming Digital Markets Act will prevent platformers from installing default software alongside an operating system.
The Court found that issue with pre-installed Google apps was that the users would just use them and not bother installing competing apps – one issue is that Google’s search apps are so good, users would not think to download other search apps. It may well have been the case that even if there were no pre-installation requirements, users would in any event go and try download Google’s search apps. Now that Google can’t bind phone manufacturers [albeit, it is likely to be appealed], we shall see whether Google can continue to maintain dominance.
Following Washington DC, now California sues Amazon for uncompetitive conduct by prohibiting sellers on its platform to sell goods elsewhere at a price point cheaper than Amazon prices
…The court in Washington had tossed the case on lack of evidence showing that Amazon’s policies had led to higher prices for consumers. This case is on appeal. Causes of Action are breach of California’s Cartwright Act (ie: restraint of trade) and the California Unfair Competition Law among other things.
The Californian case [which is very similar to the Washington DC, so it has been described] is levelled at two types of sellers; the retail level via third-party sellers that sell on Amazon’s Marketplace, and the wholesale level via wholesale suppliers that sell directly to Amazon.
More detail on Amazon’s alleged restrictive practices are described in the Delving Deeper Section. It is interesting to know how Amazon’s business model works (if true).
Note
- In the DC case, Amazon said that the term ensures prices are kept low on Amazon, and so it is pro-consumer.
The key here is that the case has been advanced in the very large state of California (compared to DC). Indeed California Attorney General said: “If you think about the number of individuals who use the Amazon platform each day and you multiply that by the number of days in a year and 10 years, the scope and scale of this case is enormous”.
US FTC issues report on Dark Patterns
…FTC said that if business conduct violates the FTC Act, it will take action as the nation’s leading consumer protection agency.
Dark Patterns are “manipulative design practices” that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made and that may cause harm
These include (and most of us will have encountered many):
- Inducing False Beliefs – eg. purportedly neutral comparison-shopping sites that actually rank companies based on compensation
- Hiding of delaying Disclosure of Material Information – eg. hidden fees
- Unauthorised charges – eg. the green button is the button they click to advance from one level to the next level. And then suddenly, that button is suddenly a ‘Buy’ button
- Obscuring or subverting privacy choices – eg. include default settings that maximize data collection and sharing
- Misleading endorsements – eg. “24 other people are viewing this listing”
- Scarcity – eg. “Only 1 left in stock – order soon”
- Urgency – eg.Creating pressure to buy immediately by showing a fake countdown clock that just goes away or resets when it times out
- Obstruction – eg. Making it easy to sign up but hard to cancel
- Interface interference – eg. user clicks the X in the top right corner of a pop-up but, instead of closing the box, it downloads software
- Coerced Action – eg. Asking repeatedly and disruptively if a user wants to take an action, forcing purchasers to create an account.
- Asymmetric Choice – eg. “No, I don’t want to save money” appears when a shopper selects a one-time purchase over a recurring one.
Businesses should, first and foremost, aspire to become good stewards of consumer personal information. Consumers should not…have to look for settings buried in a privacy policy or in a company’s terms of service: they should be presented at a time and in a context in which the consumer is making a decision about their data, said the FTC.
Over in the EU, the upcoming Digital Markets Act addresses this for gatekeepers (platforms). Article 13(6) says gatekeepers shall not … make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users’ autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof. In another clause it provides that the gatekeeper shall ensure that the conditions of termination can be exercised without undue difficulty.
Apple hit with proposed class action suit in the UK for knowingly selling iPhones with defective batteries in contravention of competition law
… it is said that the lithium-ion batteries that were defective in that they were unable to deliver the necessary peak power required by the iPhone central processing unit (“CPU”) the graphics processing unit (“GPU”) and operating system and which caused the smartphones to stall or shut down without warning. Apple’s automatic software updates then increased the Affected iPhones’ power demands further beyond the capabilities of their batteries, making things worse. As a result, users suffered prolonged substandard performance of their premium handset which did not provide the performance which users were led to believe they would experience. There are parallel claims in other jurisdictions (including the US) on the same point, albeit under consumer protection law.
Content Moderation
Fifth circuit says Texan law prohibiting platforms from moderating content is not unconstitutional
… In short, the Court said that platforms are not the same as newspapers, they are the “modern public square”. The court held that H.B.20 protects Texans’ ability to “freely express a diverse set of opinions through one of the most important communications mediums used in that state” and it did not contravene the First Amendment which protects a person’s right to free speech.
Bit more info for those that are interested
The Texan law in question is called Texas House Bill 20, or H.B.20 for short, and it prohibits large social media companies from moderating content on the grounds of “the viewpoint of the user or another person”. It was implemented last year. As I understand it, it means that platforms – such as Twitter- can’t moderate content because of what the user says, or how the user says it. It also mandates disclosure to the public as to how any content moderation is being undertaken by large tech practices, together with the explanation of available remedies.
NetChoice, a trade association of businesses (eg. TikTok, Google, Twitter, Facebook etc) and Computer Communications Industry Association (members include Amazon, Apple, BT, Cloudflare, Deliveroo, Dish, Google, Facebook, Uber, Twitter etc) who share the goal of promoting free speech sued Texas because the law forces businesses to carry objectionable speech (eg. hate or extremist speech, discriminatory content, health (eg. Covid), foreign propaganda, pornography). They say they should not be forced to treat such content equally to content of decent users. Not only will platforms be forced to carry objectionable speech, they are concerned that advertisers will withdraw support.
Although the Court upheld H.B.20, it said that prohibition on viewpoint-based censorship did have qualifications such as the ability to content moderate where authorised to do so under Federal law. Such cases include threats of violence targeted against a person or group because of their race, color, disability etc. Social Media platforms are in between a rock and hard place; they may have to content moderate (or is it just an option to do so?) where there is incitement of violence/threats, but must not content moderate otherwise. These decisions are not always easy and it could make it precarious for platforms to overly rely on AI to carry out the decision making. In addition, the platforms are also subject certain duties, such as disclosing how any content moderation is carried out and publish biannual transparency report setting out the content moderation activities of the platform.
There is conflicting finding by the 11th Circuit. It may well be appealed to the Supreme Court. I should think that Supreme Court ruling is necessary as otherwise social media platforms may end up violating one state law or another. The present findings might also clash with the Digital Services Act of the EU, which has “the objective to ensure a safe, predictable and trusted online environment, addressing the dissemination of illegal content online and the societal risks that the dissemination of disinformation or other content may generate” (Recital 9).
Privacy
Class action hits Meta alleging it collected personal data despite users rejecting request to enable third party App tracking on iPhones
…the complaint explains how Facebook’s tracking works:
- Meta tracks Facebook users’ online activity and communications with external third-party websites by injecting JavaScript code into those sites [JavaScript is programming language for the web. 98% of websites use JavaScript, not to be confused with Java programming language]
- When a user clicks on a web link within the Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger app, Meta automatically directs them to the in-app browser Meta monitors instead of the user’s default browser [an example might be the Safari app. I’ve tried this – most users won’t think which browser they are using at this stage]. The complaint says injecting JavaScript into the code of third-party websites can allow a malicious actor to intercept confidential information (including payment information) communicated to those sites.
- One can work out whether a particular in-app browser is injecting JavaScript code into third-party websites by using a tool called InAppBrowser. This is how the plaintiff was able to verify.
- There is no notice to say the user is being tracked
- Tracking occurs even if the user does not consent to being tracked.
Cause of Action: Violation of Wiretap Act, California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, Unfair Competition Law, common law claims of Unjust Enrichment and invasion of privacy. The complaint notes that a staggering 97% of Facebook’s revenue is sale of digital advertising space. That income was significantly impacted when Apple changed its privacy policy requiring apps to obtain users’ affirmative consent prior to be tracked across applications or on external websites because 96% of Apple users in the United States [no reason to believe the proportion is any different elsewhere] had not consented to being tracked by apps on their iPhone.
Connectivity
Amazon asks FCC (Federal Communication Commission) to open up use of unlicensed field disturbance sensor (“FDS”) devices onboard drones in the 60 GHz band
… Amazon Prime Air wrote to the FCC. It said the authorization is in the public interest because it enables Amazon and other innovative companies to develop and deploy Near Surround Detection (“NSD”) systems to enhance the drone’s ability to sense and avoid persons and obstacles in and near its ascent and descent path. It also asked for horizontal and vertical transmission to identify obstacles surrounding the drone. It said that doing so would not interfere with other uses, such as Earth-Exploration Satellite Service (“EESS”) and Radio Astronomy Service (“RAS”) operations. No doubt any permission would help eVTOL (electric air vehicles) business. Amazon has a stake in eVTOL startup, Beta Technologies.
Crypto
White House Releases First-Ever Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets
… frameworks and policy recommendations advance the key areas identified in the Executive Order of March on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets:
- Consumer and investor protection – required because crypto assets are volatile, the market is plagued by false promises, fraud, scams and theft. To combat this, the administration will actively enforce against bad actors, issue guidance, share data on consumer complaints, increase public awareness. [Note: In the UK, crypto exchange and wallet providers need to register with the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) for anti-money laundering supervision if that is being carried on by way of business in the UK. It has warned UK consumers this week that dealing with FTX [one of the largest crypto exchanges, based offshore in the Bahamas] will not be provided protections such as Financial Ombudsman or Financial Services Compensation Scheme]
- Promoting Access to Safe, Affordable Financial Services – Some digital assets could help facilitate faster payments and make financial services more accessible, but more work is needed to ensure they truly benefit consumers. Agencies will encourage the adoption of instant payment systems, create a federal framework to regulate nonbank payment providers.
- Fostering financial stability – identify and mitigate cyber vulnerabilities / identify, track, and analyze emerging strategic risks
- Responsible innovation
- U.S. leadership in the global financial system and economic competitiveness – includes increase collaboration with—and assistance to—partner agencies in foreign countries through global enforcement bodies, explore further technical assistance to developing countries building out digital asset infrastructure and services.
- Fighting Illicit Finance – amend the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), anti-tip-off statutes, and laws against unlicensed money transmitting to apply explicitly to digital asset service providers, raise penalties.
- Exploring a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) – the Administration has developed Policy Objectives for a U.S. CBDC System
Nasdaq to offer Crypto Services
…Nasdaq which is one of the largest stock exchanges (most tech giants are listed on Nasdaq) is preparing to offer crypto services to institutional investors despite the cratering of the cryptocurrencies market. It will initially begin custody of crypto tokens for institutional investors, but likely eventually to include trading of digital assets.
EVs/AVs
Farming equipment maker John Deere expects 10% of its revenue to come from software fees by end of the decade
…as the population and so food demand is expected to carry on rising on into the future, the humankind is likely to have to rely on AgTech to make food production more efficient. John Deere, which is US agriculture equipment company, which is said to control over 50% of US farm tractor market said its revenues arising out of tech – in particular, software is expected to occupy 10% of its income. How is this done? It will sell software subscription for its smart vehicles. It estimated 1.5millions of machinery will generate data and fed into John Deere Operation Centre which can identify which patch will have weeds (distinguished from crops) that require herbicides, for example. The farmer can then save on herbicide and concentrate spraying in particular areas. Farmers are concerned:
- Data generated in all the fields will be used to service other fields.
- John Deere will own data generated in the farmers’ fields
- John Deere can wield enormous power over farmers with the ability to shut down tractors in the event of missed payments. [Indeed, tractors were stolen from Russian forces in Ukraine and John Deere was able to block them].
A complaint has been filed by to the US FTC because John Deere makes it impossible for farmers to get independent tractor repairers to repair tractors by refusing to share software and technical data, citing security issues. Indeed John Deere’s tractors have been hacked.
[cf: there are rules in place in the EU to allow independent car repairers to do repairs (although there are complaints about the ease with which independent car repairers can utilise that data – awaiting decision from EU’s top court), and the upcoming EU Data Act also facilitates the opening up of after sale markets by allowing independent repairers to access data].
Note:
- John Deere unveiled its fully autonomous tractor at the CES event this year. John Deere makes it possible to convert a legacy tractor into a smart tractor.
- AgTech will help farmers save cost, for example, reduce tractor drivers, minimise herbicide use, fuel use, and water use by being specific about which patch require what
- With the use of Big Data, AgTech will help farmers be more efficient by helping farmers make better decisions on which crops to plant where, which herbicide to use and where, exactly which day to plant (sometimes called precision farming).
Auto parts major Magna is making Pizza delivery “bots”
…which is a three wheeled vehicle. It has recently made two significant moves, an investment in Yulu – an Indian company that makes wheeled EVs and entering into a partnership with Cartken – a Californian autonomous delivery robot company.
Satellites/ Space
UK Government has to decide, should satellite company OneWeb (now owned by French Eutel) be a strategic asset or an investment piece?
..the UK Government poured $500million worth of tax payers’ money into OneWeb (one of the few providers of broadband services from satellites) to ensure it has a stake in the Satellite/Space field. Money was required to upgrade (and keep up with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ space ventures), and the decision was made to sell OneWeb to Eutel. As part of the deal, UK retained control over OneWeb, enabling the use of OneWeb network for national security purposes. But more money is needed and it is losing government and business deals which it was targeting, to Starlink which has better technical capabiltiies. EU is not allowing any funding to go to OneWeb unless the UK concedes some of OneWeb control. Decision time for the UK government.
Supply Chains
EU seeking emergency powers to bolster supply chain resilience
…such measures follow that of US and Japan that have similar frameworks.
Under the regime businesses could be compelled to…
- prioritise production of key products
- stockpile goods
Any measures are unlikely to come into force in the immediate future, but those businesses that are entering into new supply relationships should think about such potential outcomes in their terms anyway to carve out a case for breach of contract being made against them, if they have to comply with emergency orders.
Supply chain management isn’t easy today – as the FT points out, businesses will need to ensure they can meet demand in the deadline but also factors such as carbon footprint, biodiversity impact and working conditions of suppliers need to be borne in mind.
Delving Deeper
Further detail on EU General Court’s antitrust decision on Google’s conduct of compelling device makers to pre-install Google Search etc
So, in further detail, what were the restrictions which were considered anticompetitive?
What were the restrictions which were considered anticompetitive?
- Imposing “distribution agreements” requiring Android manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome browser apps in order to be able to obtain a licence from Google to use its app store (Play Store) [this enables Google to gather data on what people search for and use that data to ad-target (and receive advertising revenue)];
- Imposing “anti-fragmentation agreements” under which the operating licences necessary for the pre-installation of the Google Search and Play Store apps could be obtained by mobile device manufacturers only if they undertook not to sell devices running versions of the Android operating system not approved by Google [what this means is that, because Android is open source, developers can make their own version of the Android operating system – Google restricts manufacturers that pre-install its apps from selling these alternative Android phones (eg. Amazon’s Android Fire Operating System)].
- Imposing “revenue share agreements”, under which the grant of a share of Google’s advertising revenue to the manufacturers of mobile devices and the mobile network operators was subject to their undertaking not to pre-install a competing general search service on a predefined portfolio of devices.
The commission had found that the objective of the restrictions was to reinforce Google’s dominant position in relation to general search services and, therefore, the revenue obtained by Google through search advertisements. The General Court confirmed the first two points, but did not find there to be any abuse on the third point.
Further detail on Californian state claim against Amazon on uncompetitive conduct by prohibiting sellers on its platform to sell goods elsewhere at a price point cheaper than Amazon prices
What’s said to be the problematic conduct?
Amazon restricts sellers from selling goods at a cheaper price point on other platforms (the restriction).
- It means third party platforms can’t compete with Amazon because they are prohibited from lowering their prices.
- Sellers have the burden to continuously monitor various platforms to make sure that products are not sold on other platforms more cheaply.
- Amazon’s restriction means Amazon’s high commission and fees are mandated on other platforms, when they could be offered at lower prices without those fees. Consumers are prohibited from being offered lower prices. Therefore, the term is anticompetitive. [note that, the EU Commission, have already stamped down on Amazon on the issue for its e-Books ]
- Amazon compelled wholesale suppliers to guarantee a minimum margin specified by Amazon, by making them make up for any shortfall if Amazon’s price-matching in response to other online stores’ lower prices results in Amazon making less than the “minimum margin”. This induces wholesales to deny discounts on competing online stores, and keep prices high.
- Even when Amazon removed the restriction, it is said that it penalised sellers which sold cheaper products elsewhere by demoting their offers to the bottom of Amazon’s organic search results, and blocking them from creating new offers in their third-party seller accounts altogether (de facto restriction).
Amazon penalises certain sellers
- Amazon penalises sellers that do not use Fulfilled By Amazon service [where Amazon does the picking, packing, and shipping, and provides customer service to complete the order] – products will not receive the Prime badge (qualifies for express shipping for Prime subscribing customers – which are most lucrative customers – there are 160 million households) in Amazon’s store, which adversely affects sale. In other more serious cases, Amazon can terminate the privilege of being able to sell on its platform.
- Made sellers pay for advertising to appear at the top of relevant search result, or appear as recommended alternatives. Sellers had no choice but to pay for advertising.
- Amazon decides which seller’s offer to include in the Buy Box (i.e. which seller will make the sale if the shopper clicks on the “Add to Cart” or “Buy Now” button in the Buy Box) – consumers don’t pay attention to other sellers that sell the same item. For example, sellers have to use Amazon’s price matching tool (to keep up with other competitors – which could include raising prices) to stay eligible for the Buy Box.
What is the rational for Amazon’s policy?
Amazon says that customers can be assured that the prices offered on Amazon are the lowest customers can get.
What are the relevant points to bear in mind (according to the complaint)?
- Sellers and wholesale suppliers cannot afford to lose Amazon because of their market dominance
- Amazon operates the largest online retail store in the United States, accounting for an estimated over 49% of all sales in the Online Retail Store Market by gross merchandise value. That number is many multiples of those figures for Walmart and eBay, the two next largest online retail stores.
- 160 million Prime members are already paying Amazon $139 per year for unlimited free and fast shipping, they are generally reluctant to pay Amazon’s competitors for the same kind of service
- This means Amazon can—and does—charge substantially higher fees and demand substantially higher profitability on its sales of their products than it could in a competitive market – yet it can remain dominant because sellers/suppliers can’t sell goods cheaper elsewhere
One more thing…
What’s the difference between a typeface and a font?
…that happens to be at the heart of a case between a restaurant chain Shake Shack and House Industries, which is described as a “font foundry”. Shake Shack is seeking a declaratory judgment in response to House’s demand for a licence fee. Shake Shack’s logo looks like this:
Bit about the font: Complaint says it uses a typeface called Neutra developed in the 1930s by architect Richard Neutra.
Shake Shack says: Logo is a bespoke design created expressly for Shake Shack by an internationally renowned graphic design firm
Law: US Law says typeface cannot attract copyright protection (section 202 Title 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations) [Note in the UK, typeface is copyright protectable but there is wide-ranging limitation to the extent of protection].
Difference between a Typeface and a Font: Typeface is the design of the lettering. Font is what you use to produce the typeface (eg. wooden blocks or software programs. The claimant develops various pieces of code which produce a variety of typefaces). The complaint says that the software may well be protected but not the outcome of the software (ie: Typeface).