Is it OK that Jenner is so similar to SAS?

Our Product

Jenner Analytics Ltd develops a SAS-compatible analytics platform. Our software is written entirely from scratch in Rust, with many statistical processes redundantly implemented as wrappers around both R and Python. It enables organisations to run programs written in the SAS Language without requiring a SAS Institute licence.

We have no relationship with SAS Institute Inc. We have never held a SAS licence. We have never accessed SAS source code. Our implementation is entirely independent.

Statistical and time-series procedures (ARIMA, REG, LOGISTIC, LIFETEST, and others) use Rust-based wrappers around open-source Python (statsmodels) and R (survival, forecast) implementations as their computational backend, while accepting standard SAS syntax.

Industry Precedent

Jenner Analytics is not the first company to offer a SAS-compatible platform. World Programming Ltd (WPL) was the first, with its WPS product — now marketed as Altair SLC. In successfully defending the litigation described below, WPL paved the way in clearing the legal hurdles for SAS-compatible systems, and for the software industry as a whole. Altair Engineering, which acquired WPL, was itself ultimately purchased by Siemens. Altair SLC remains available today as a specialised — but still rather expensive — alternative to SAS.

The broader software industry has been built on reimplementation of programming language specifications for over sixty years. Examples include multiple implementations of FORTRAN, C, SQL, Java, Python, .NET, and many others. As 54 prominent computer scientists wrote in an amicus brief filed in that litigation: "The practices of reimplementation and interoperability are the foundation of the modern software industry."

The Law Is Clear: Reimplementing a Programming Language Is Lawful

The question of whether it is lawful to create an independent, compatible implementation of the SAS Language has been litigated extensively — across the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — over more than a decade. The answer in every jurisdiction is the same: it is lawful.

United States

SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd was litigated in US federal courts from 2010 to 2023. SAS brought copyright claims against World Programming Ltd (WPL), the developer of WPS (now Altair SLC), a SAS-compatible analytics platform.

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of North Carolina (2014): The court held that "the SAS Language is open and free to use" and that reimplementing SAS Language functionality does not infringe copyright. SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd, 64 F. Supp. 3d 755 (E.D.N.C. 2014).
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (2020): Judge Gilstrap dismissed SAS's copyright claims with prejudice, finding that SAS could not identify any protectable expression in its "input formats" or "output designs" after applying the abstraction-filtration-comparison test. SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd, 496 F. Supp. 3d 1019 (E.D. Tex. 2020).
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2023): The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that SAS's input formats and output designs are uncopyrightable functional elements. SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd, No. 21-1542 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 6, 2023).

Four amicus curiae briefs were filed in support of WPL at the Federal Circuit, reflecting broad industry consensus:

54 Computer Scientists — including four Turing Award recipients (Frederick Brooks Jr., Alan Kay, David Patterson, Ivan Sutherland) and the creators of Python, Scala, Smalltalk, Unix, and Ghostscript — stated that reimplementation of programming language specifications is "the foundation of the modern software industry" and a practice spanning over sixty years.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued that SAS's claims belonged in patent law, not copyright, and that SAS had in fact obtained patents on the same elements — then abandoned all patent claims with prejudice before judgment.
GitHub, Inc. (a Microsoft subsidiary and the world's largest software development platform) argued that vague nonliteral copyright claims against reimplementors create systemic disruption to software development.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) argued that SAS failed to establish any prima facie case of infringement — SAS's own expert never compared any SAS code with WPL's code and could not identify a single similar line.

United Kingdom

The same dispute was litigated in the UK courts, reaching the Court of Appeal (the second-highest court in England and Wales):

UK High Court (2010): Arnold J held that studying SAS's published documentation to understand and replicate functionality is lawful, and that the SAS Language is a programming language whose elements are not protectable by copyright. SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2010] EWHC 1829 (Ch).
UK Court of Appeal (2013): The Court of Appeal dismissed all of SAS's copyright appeals, holding that keywords, syntax, commands, options, and defaults — whether individually or in combination — are "ideas, procedures, methods of operation" and not protectable expression. The UK Supreme Court denied SAS leave to appeal. SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1482.

European Union

The UK High Court referred questions of EU law to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which issued a landmark ruling:

CJEU (2012): The Grand Chamber held that "neither the functionality of a computer program nor the programming language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression of that program" and are therefore not protected by copyright. The Court further held that "to accept that the functionality of a computer program can be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development." SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd, Case C-406/10 (CJEU, 2 May 2012).

This ruling is binding on all EU Member State courts.

Jenner Analytics' Position

Jenner Analytics' position is stronger than WPL's was in the original litigation:

Factor	WPL (original defendant)	Jenner Analytics
SAS licence	Acquired SAS Learning Edition	Never held any SAS licence
SAS software used	Used Learning Edition during development	Never used SAS software
SAS source code access	No access to source code	No access to source code
Implementation language	C (same as SAS)	Rust (fundamentally different from SAS's C)
Contract liability	Found liable for $79M (breach of Learning Edition licence)	No contractual relationship with SAS — no contract claim possible
Copyright liability	Not liable (all claims dismissed)	Even stronger position — no licence, no software use, different language

WPL prevailed on every copyright claim. WPL's only liability was for breaching the terms of a SAS licence it had acquired — a theory that is entirely unavailable against Jenner Analytics because we have never held any SAS licence.

For Our Customers

Our customers can use Jenner Analytics' platform with confidence:

The law is settled. Courts in the US, UK, and EU have all confirmed that reimplementing a programming language specification is lawful.
Our implementation is independent. We have never accessed SAS source code. Our entire codebase is written in Rust — a fundamentally different language from SAS's C implementation.
We have no SAS licence to breach. Unlike WPL, we have never held any SAS licence. The only successful claim against WPL was for breaching a licence we never had.
The industry supports this practice. Four Turing Award recipients, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, GitHub, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association all filed briefs confirming that reimplementation is normal, pro-innovation, and lawful.