Trade Dress Protection for Computer User Interface "Look and Feel"

A personal computer's user interface is the means by which the software and user interact. The look and feel of a user interface is the sequence of the screens and the choices presented, the layout of the screens, and the method of feedback to the user. The look and feel of software is extremely important to the developer and may even be of greater commercial value than the programming code that implements it. Courts have proven reluctant to award copyright protection to user interface look and feel. However, trade dress law provides the type of narrow protection needed to protect the look and feel of a product as a whole. Trade dress law represents a more promising source of intellectual property protection for computer user interfaces than does copyright law.