Yes, you're right. The original act of designing the interface is creative expression. But that isn't actually the point. The question is whether the the perso

Yes, you're right. The original act of designing the interface is creative expression. But that isn't actually the point. The question is whether the the person creating something compatible with it has scope to exercise creative expression. It's like the difference between reproducing Van Gogh's chair and stating the fact it that it is yellow. The fact that it is yellow isn't copyrightable, even though the original painting is.