Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!malcolm
From: malcolm@Apple.COM (Malcolm Slaney)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: Apple Employees Please Note
Summary: Just what is intellectual property
Message-ID: <32466@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 16 Jun 89 06:21:39 GMT
References: <8906080252.AA02091@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> <2376@internal.Apple.COM> <6939@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Distribution: gnu
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 40

In article <6939@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> krk@cs.purdue.EDU (Kevin Kuehl) writes:
>I think your comparision is a good one for the position of not having
>a user interface's "look-and-feel" copyrightable.  By my
>understanding, if Apple would win this, then I think AT&T would be
>able to copyright the unified Input/Output system of Unix.  And
>whoever came up with the idea of system calls could copyright those
>also.  

Since there isn't a gnu.politics yet...and at the risk of being flamed....

There are really three issues here.  The first is whether serious intellectual
effort goes into designing a user interface.  For example at Bell Labs 
there is a REALLY large group of people (at least there used to be) who
did human factors experiments and try to come up with the best design for
some phone company widgit.  Just off the top of my head I think every other
creative work (ie intellectual effort) is protected by some form of law.
Should human interface people be any different?  Look at paintings, writing,
engineering, music, etc.  Even software and algorithms can be patented
these days.  Look at the patents that Prof. Bracewell at Stanford got on 
his Fast Hartley transform.

The second issue is obviousness.  In retrospect a lot of patents are really
obvious.  But what matters in patents, for example, is that the new idea
not be obvious to people well versed in the field AT THAT TIME.

Finally, there is the question of how do you fit a new aspect of intellectual
creativity into the present legal framework.

There is no question in my mind that human factors work fits into the realm
of intellectual property that is protected by the Constitution.  I have
absolutely no idea how to judge whether something is obvious.  (But in the
early 1980's neither the Xerox Star or the Mac were obvious to me.)  And 
I certainly don't know how to do the legal work.

							Malcolm
P.S.  So what is the FSF position on patents and copyright?  I notice that
the Gnu Emacs manual is copyrighted but yet the Gnu Manifesto notes that it
was probably good that early authors copied each other's work.  Is the
FSF against all intellectual property or just the ones that are obvious
to them?