United States[edit]
In the United States, even if an artifact or process is protected by
trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful if it has been legitimately obtained.
[40]
Reverse engineering of
computer software often falls under both
contract law as a
breach of contract as well as any other relevant laws. That is because most
end user license agreements specifically prohibit it, and US courts have ruled that if such terms are present, they override the copyright law that expressly permits it (see
Bowers v. Baystate Technologies[41][42]). According to Section 103(f) of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (
17 U.S.C. § 1201 (f)), a person in legal possession of a program may reverse-engineer and circumvent its protection if that is necessary to achieve "interoperability," a term that broadly covers other devices and programs that can interact with it, make use of it, and to use and transfer data to and from it in useful ways. A limited exemption exists that allows the knowledge thus gained to be shared and used for interoperability purposes.
[43]
European Union[edit]
EU Directive 2009/24 on the legal protection of computer programs, which superseded an earlier (1991) directive,
[44] governs reverse engineering in the
European Union.
[45][46]
