Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!oliveb!sun!morocco!landauer
From: landauer%morocco@Sun.COM (Doug Landauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Mac "Look and Feel" vs DRI
Message-ID: <11824@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 21-Jan-87 17:12:08 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.11824
Posted: Wed Jan 21 17:12:08 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Jan-87 03:24:21 EST
References: <4740006@hpvcla.HP.COM> <6640003@hpfclp.HP.COM>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: landauer@sun.UUCP (Doug Landauer)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 28

In article <6640003@hpfclp.HP.COM> diamant@hpfclp.HP.COM (John Diamant)
wrote, in response to Dave Neff's article:

> For some reason, under certain circumstances, reverse engineering is
> considered acceptable (hardware clones of machines), and possibly UNIX
> clones.  In other cases, it is not, such as pull down menus that Apple
> managed to patent (or otherwise protect -- I don't know the details).
> I don't really understand the criterion used to determine whether it is
> O.K. or not.

No one does.  In Apple's case, it was DRI's "GEM" software that was changed
because of this consideration.  This dispute never went to court, so it
doesn't have much bearing on whether the Mac's "look and feel" is patented
or whatever.  (DRI just didn't want the expense of going to court at a
critical time in GEM's product lifetime and in their cash flow situation.)
One court case that might have relevance was the one brought by the creators
of Pacman against an imitator (but here, I don't know the details.)

To make this relevant to MINIX (and Unix clones in general), my opinion is
that "look and feel" is irrelevant in the case of Unix clones because the
versions of Unix that are being cloned have no screen oriented utilities.

"Look and Feel" is a trademark of the Mitchell Brothers, of San Francisco.

--
	Doug Landauer		    Sun's Net:		 landauer@morocco
	Phone:   415 691-7655	    ARPANET (aka DDN):   landauer@sun.com
	UUCP:  {amdahl, decwrl, hplabs, seismo, ...}!sun!landauer