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From: ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Arthur Ogawa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Apple's claim to GUI upheld; suit vs. Microsoft/HP is closer to trial
Message-ID: <1991Mar10.011719.29740@news.arc.nasa.gov>
Date: 10 Mar 91 01:17:19 GMT
References: <6944@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <8516@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
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In article <8516@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> lim@iris.ucdavis.edu (Lloyd Lim) writes:
|In article <6944@idunno.Princeton.EDU> swryder@pucc (Scott Ryder) writes:
|>I found this news on the public AppleShare server that the Apple
|>Student Representative on this campus maintains; apparently it was
|>released only a matter of hours ago.  The implications of this are
|>staggering.
|
|It's not really that staggering, read it a little closer.
[lines deleted]
|To very loosely describe what has happened, the judge said that the Macintosh
|interface is different from Xerox's work and that most of the Macintosh
|interface was not included in the old license with Microsoft.
|
|The really interesting part, on copyright infringement and whether the
|audi-visual display can be copyrighted, will take place during the trial.
[lines deleted]

My question is, in those areas where the Mac interface duplicates
that of Smalltalk (overlapping windows and the USE of icons), how can
Apple clain protection? Can someone with a background in law explain what
Apple's leg to stand on is here?

Also, doesn't the decision in the Ashton-Tate case have a similarity here?
(Albeit in their case, they were copying PUBLIC DOMAIN software.)
Arthur Ogawa        Internet: ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov  Ph: 1/415/691-1126
TeX consultant      AppleLink: ogawa                    FAX:1/415/962-1969