> As part of its efforts to develop the WPS, defendant obtained a license to use the “Learning Edition” provided by plaintiff

This is a contract dispute plain and simple. It has nothing to do with California law and everything to do with civil procedure. You have a contract, and you claim and prove damages.

If you want to reverse engineer software, don’t enter into a contract with the maker of that software

In California, the employer can state that I'm not allowed to later work for a competitor. However, non-competes are not enforceable in California, unlike Washington for example.

Contract law has limits, and those limits differ on a state-by-state basis.

A contract cannot substitute itself to the law, unless the law permits it.

The law isn’t even involved in this case. It’s a contract dispute. It’s a civil case

The law stipulates what is and isn't subject to contract. Laws trump contracts every time, which is why contracts always have a clause "if any part of this contract is unenforceable..."