The computer industry's dependence on new, innovative programs and software has led to the protection of intellectual property becoming a topic of heated debate in the industry. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this issue gave rise to numerous lawsuits, thus forcing courts to establish precedents and guidelines on how to prove software copyright infringement. Many of these cases involved copyright infringement of graphical user interfaces, or GUIs; which consist of visual signals and representations seen through a particular program or software. GUIs, in essence, determine the look and feel of a program. The dilemma the computer industry faced was how similar one interface had to be to another to constitute copyright infringement. The answer to this dilemma would also serve as an answer to other issues faced by the industry at the time: computers, similar to automobiles, should have a standard “dashboard” (also known as GUI) to allow computers to be used more efficient (Markoff) ? What is the balance between information sharing that promotes innovation and intellectual property protection? First, a look at the law. The essential idea behind a copyright is that the owner of a copyright owns the particular expression of an idea, "but not the underlying idea or method of operation" (TEXTBOOK). In the computer industry, it became difficult to separate which parts of software were ideas and not protected by copyright law and which were expressions of an idea, and therefore protected. For example, do elements made for efficiency have a limited number of ways they can be expressed, so are they protected, or are such elements incidental to an idea and unprotected? Elements but ...... middle of paper ......ge of information have also been taken into consideration, but there are arguments that this is not the case. For example, some might say that courts have made it too difficult to prove copyright infringement because there are ways that companies can deliberately avoid copyright infringement (search for "clean room design") while still creating a program that is, for all practical purposes, identical to the original. All things considered, intellectual property law is not perfect. It was established long before anyone knew the challenges and complexities of protecting their intellectual property that are seen today. Intellectual property laws were not designed with technology in mind. That said, courts are working to review and rule on such cases in order to establish guidelines and precedents, all while trying to maintain the spirit in which intellectual property laws were enacted.