Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!uunet!looking!brad From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software Subject: Re: Capitalist Software Tools Message-ID: <1990Aug15.071911.3083@looking.on.ca> Date: 15 Aug 90 07:19:11 GMT References: <80565@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1990Aug10.043721.2081@looking.on.ca> <80636@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1990Aug11.040632.21692@looking.on.ca> <80817@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1990Aug14.172413.10447@looking.on.ca> news@helens.Stanford.EDU (news) writes: >gumby@Cygnus.COM writes: > 2) The lifespans of technologies are decreasing. 17 years > of protection represents a much larger part of the entire > useful life of a software technology than has historically > been true of mechanical products. This is a tough one. While I have been a proponent of the reduced term patent for algorithms, it's hard to say what the term should be. For example, take public-key cryptosystems. Obvious idea? Hardly. Cryptology had been a major, war-funded area of research for many decades before public-key systems were created. They are very valuable -- an obvious win in many applications. They will let us do things in security we could not have done otherwise. Yet they were invented almost 17 years ago, and it is only now that the real use is coming. A 5 year patent would have left the authors with squat. Electronic spreadsheets? You think it's super obvious today, but I was one of the people demonstrating VisiCalc when it was launched in 1979 at NCC in New York. Yes, many people keyed in quickly, but it is amazing (in hindsight) to remember how difficult the idea was to get through to many experienced computer types. Not at all obvious at the time, it turns out. But in this case, a 5 year patent would have been plenty to make good money. >Perhaps, but patents and UI copyrights not only protect against >someone "taking" your idea. They also prevent someone else with the >same original idea from using it. Patents do this, that's true. And it's their biggest problem. I don't think the same applies to UI copyrights. At least not in the Lotus case. *Nobody* is coming up with the identical Lotus 1-2-3 menu tree independently. They are all sitting down with a copy of 1-2-3 and copying it. That is not innovation in the slightest. While I am not keen on it, I can see Lotus' case here pretty well. They designed a menu tree, which one can easily depict on a piece of paper. They made a successful claim that a software system that follows this exact tree is a derivative work based on that tree. Under the law -- which is pretty clear about derivative works -- I think they have a case. (This is not a "look and feel" case, however. It is a case based on the fact that a carefully designed menu tree is in of itself a work that can be protected.) Stopping the cloning of that menu tree harms nobody, except those who refuse to think of something on their own. The only reason to duplicate that tree is to take advantage of the immense effort Lotus has put into gaining and training customers who use that system. Not to innovate. I would not support anybody owning the concept of the menu tree in general, or any common menu system like 1-2-3's (with arrow keys, first-letters, etc.) But in this case it's not so much a style of interface that VP-Planner copied. It's copying the *exact* interface that I have no problem with forbidding. The only reason to do that is to do a knock-off. Yes, it's hard if you can't say, "here, use the same tree that you're used to." But that's what competing and innovating are all about. A similar approach applies to GUIs. I don't think anybody can claim that pointing at pictures is a new idea. But I do think people have a right to protect exact representations. Does this hurt standardization? I think not. Yes, it means you can't clone the popular interface. But look at the lessons of history. Standards come from poeople agreeing on them -- including the original inventor. The Compact Cassette is a famous example. Look at VHS vs. Beta. Look at the IBM PC vs. the PS/2. Time after time, the successful standards are the ones that the creators let out into the world either free or under reasonable terms. Those that people try to keep proprietary eventually die. You only get a standard that works when everybody is in agreement. So I say, let people protect their interfaces. It only dooms them, and promotes real innovation. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473