SoftMan Products Co. v. Adobe Systems Inc.

Adobe Systems contended in a counterclaim that the original plaintiff, SoftMan, infringed its copyright and violating the terms of Adobe's licenses by selling as individual units the software titles that were purchased from Adobe as a single boxed "Collection". The individual titles had their own cds.

Under the first-sale doctrine it is debatably legal to resell software; Adobe tried to maintain that SoftMan had not purchased any software but only a license (the EULA) which prohibits, among many things, reselling of their software. The Court decided that because of "the circumstances surrounding the transaction" that Softman actually had bought a copy of the software, not just a license as Adobe maintained, because as far as the purchaser is concerned the license is very similar to owning a copy in that it is paid for once for perpetual use of the software.
The Court also found that SoftMan had not infringed on the EULA (even if it had been upheld) because SoftMan had never run the program. The EULA was only presented when the program was to be installed, it was not present on the packaging or as printed material.

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