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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc,net.micro.atari,net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: DRI agrees to change GEM ; why??
Message-ID: <697@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 18-Oct-85 03:31:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.697
Posted: Fri Oct 18 03:31:31 1985
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> > 
> > This also has nothing to do with the visual copyright....
> 
> Huh? Visual copyright?! I doubt such a thing exists - Imagine IBM copyrighting
> not only their ROM code but the look (the top is a plastic rectangle with these
> little metal pins sticking out... :-) ).
> 
> My understanding of software copyright law is that someone can produce a program
> with a similar visual look, and as long as no code is pirated from the first
> program, no infringement exists. Otherwise Xerox should certainly sue Apple.
> 
> 					Kevin Kinder

A good book on copyright law is "The Copyright Book" by William S. Strong,
an attorney who specializes in the field.  The publisher is MIT Press.  The
book is a well-written, plain language explanation of copyright law and the
reasons behind the law.  According to Mr. Strong, the Federal copyright
statute protects "original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium
of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived,
reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a
machine or a device."

There are three criteria that must be met for something to be copyrightable:
fixation, originality, and expression.  Fixation is the act of putting something
in a form in which others can perceive it.  To be original, a work must be
the product of the mind of the author (or minds of the authors).  Finally,
one can only copyright an expression of an idea, and not the idea itself.

This all sounds simple enough, but it's not.  There is the idea of a derivative
work, which is one in which someone else's work is "recast, transformed, or
adapted".  According to Strong, "When a derivative work gets its own copyright,
this copyright is limited, like all other copyrights, to whatever material is
original with the creator."  But he also says that "copyright in the expression
of an idea will not be enforced so as to prevent other people from putting the
idea to pratical use."

I'm no lawyer, but my feeling after reading this book is that Apple might be
able to patent some of the techniques they introduced in their user interfaces,
but they can't copyright them.  However, they can copyright particular screens
and presentations.  They could even copyright the order of operations that a
program presents to the user.  Even if DRI's interface doesn't look
exactly like that of the Mac, Apple might claim that DRI's interface (screens
and presentation, not the techniques involved) is derived from Apple's, and
that DRI didn't get permission to copy the part of their interface that wasn't
original.  I haven't seen Gem or anything from Xerox PARC, but this is the only
explanation I can think of from what I have heard so far.  I have no idea
whether Apple had to obtain copyright from Xerox to develop and market the
Lisa and Macintosh systems; from what I have read, it seems that they copied
a lot of the ideas but not the expressions of those ideas.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."

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