Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!ginosko!aplcen!haven!purdue!gatech!ncar!boulder!gore!jacob
From: jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Apple/uSoft Court's "Memorandum of Decision and Order"
Message-ID: <970001@gore.com>
Date: 1 Aug 89 05:34:09 GMT
References: <1989Jul31.223834.10407@algor2.uu.net>
Reply-To: jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore)
Organization: Gore Enterprises
Lines: 23

/ gnu.misc.discuss / jeffrey@algor2.uu.net (Jeffrey Kegler) / Jul 31, 1989 /

> First, my thanks to John Gilmore for going to the trouble of retyping
> the memo into the net

Ditto.

> ...
Well, I don't see an easy way to carve out the representative passages, but
Mr. Kegler is worried that Judge Schwartzer's "tone" implies that he
accepts the concept of Apple having a copyright on features of the Mac
interface, which he seems to be calling "visual displays".

I don't see that in this decision at all.  All he did was throw out Apple's
infringement claims on items that were, in his judgement, covered by the
license (given by Apple to Microsoft in 85).  Microsoft was licensed to use
the stuff by Apple, so Apple can't sue them for using it.  That's it.  It
does not imply that Apple's copyright on those items is valid, or that it
even exists.  The question of whether those items are copyrighted is just
not relevant to this decision.

--
Jacob Gore	Jacob@Gore.Com		{nucsrl,boulder}!gore!jacob