Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!rutgers!ub!oswego!news
From: dab@Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: NEW FOUNDATION ESTABLISHED TO ENCOURAGE COMPUTER-BASED COMMUNICATIONS POLICIES
Message-ID: <1990Aug15.145039.11312@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
Date: 15 Aug 90 14:50:39 GMT
References: <5122@fernwood.mpk.ca.us> <1421@pta.oz.au> <1968@runxtsa.runx.oz.au> <64160@sgi.sgi.com> <1990Jul15.140533.17544@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> <1990Aug15.144402.11208@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
Reply-To: dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Organization: Instructional Computing Center, SUNY at Oswego, Oswego, NY
Lines: 28

In Forester & Morrison's book, "Computer Ethics: Cautionary Tales and
Ethical Dilemmas in Computing", there is the following:

"In turn, Lotus itself was sued for $100 million by the Software Arts
Procduts Corporation (SAPC), developers of the original VisiCalc program,
who claimed that Lotus had copied many of the command and keystrokes as 
well as the screen displays of VisiCalc in 1-2-3.  SAPC claimed that Lotus
founder Mitch Kapor 'misappropriated' copyrighted and confidential aspects
of the VisiCalc program while he was an employee of the exclusive 
marketing agent for VisiCalc.  SAPC further alleged that later, as a
product tester for an advanced version of VisiCalc, Kapor 'had access to
copyrighted and confidential aspects' of the program.  He 'deliberately
sought to make the 1-2-3 program look and feel like VisiCalc'."

The authors reference "The Australian", 21 April 1987 and "Business
Week", 31 August 1987 and 22 May 1989.

Does anyone know the status of this lawsuit?  Is it still alive?
Have they settled?  Has it been thrown out?

Given the Lotus win over Paperback Software, the result of this suit
would be very interesting.

         /\           David Alan Bozak, Computer Science Department
        /  \          SUNY College at Oswego, Oswego, NY  13126 (315) 341-2347
  _____/____\_____    Internet: dab@rocky.oswego.edu                     
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