[ranger_danger]

What if one reverse engineered the original logic, for example translating the assembly code into a higher level language. They didn't use or look at the original code. Does that still count as "clean room"? What's the legal difference between that and deriving the logic just from observing how the running program acts?

[em-bee]

there is no legal precedence that clarifies what clean room development is. clean room development is a precaution to stay away as far as possible from the original code in order to reduce the risk of infringement. clearly, not looking at the assembly code is better than looking at it.