Reminds me of the court case of Google copying Oracle's code. There's a video on it by Virtual Legality, it's a bit long but a very interesting listen (at least in my opinion).

I know that copyright is the only reason why people would pour so many resources into development of something, but sometimes I wonder if the laws should be loosened a bit so that it's not a criminal or civil offense to use the most efficient code instead of having to either innovate (which is likely to be one in a million chances) or take more time to develop less efficient code (or engines, or watches, or any other copywritten item being developed that has the most efficient form locked away by it's developers for longer then a patent lasts).