> The bigger problem is the legal system isn't a logical system, it's a social construct. The reason why it allows cleanrooming is its how it promotes understanding, creates labor, and is generally too expensive for your entire product to be wholesale copied the moment you publish it.

The law neither allows nor disallows clean room reverse engineering. Clean room reverse engineering enables a defendant to logically prove they have not copied the any protected expression, because the implementers have never seen any protected expression.