Xref: utzoo misc.legal:4389 comp.sys.ibm.pc:13821 comp.sys.mac:14523 comp.sys.apple:4975
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!pdn!alan
From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Icon ownership (was Re: Apple Challenges...)
Message-ID: <2643@pdn.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 88 15:57:44 GMT
References: <5480@well.UUCP> <4092@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1719@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <1454@csib.csi.UUCP> <7987@sol.ARPA>
Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy)
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 52
Keywords: Apple HP Microsoft Windows OS/2 New Wave Frivolous Litigation

In article <7987@sol.ARPA> olson@cs.rochester.edu (Thomas J. Olson) writes:
>Star didn't have a trash can, though its successor (Viewpoint) does.  Like most
>Star features, the trash can comes from Smalltalk.  Oh, how I yearn to see
>Apple sue Xerox over that trash can!

Have you ever used Smalltalk?  From your comments I assume the answer is
no.  First of all, there is no trashcan in Smalltalk.  Secondly, the
Smalltalk "desktop" is different from the Mac desktop in almost every
detail except that both are windowing systems with mice, icons and
black-on-white video.  Thirdly, Apple paid Xerox for the technology.
So even if Xerox did sue Apple, the suit would be very unlikely to
succeed.  Fourth, Apple cannot and does not claim the rights to all
trashcan icons.  People have drawn pictures of trashcans for quite a
while, so that's effectively in the public domain.  What is not in the
public domain is anything too closely approximating a pixel-for-pixel copy 
of Apple's trashcan used as an icon in a windowing system with significant 
resemblance to Apple's.

>/* begin snide remark */
>Come to think of it, Star even had the wimpy non-preemptive scheduler
>and lack of memory protection that the Mac made famous.  
>/* end snide remark */

Meaning...?

>Now, it's true that when I used Star the Mac had been out for 2 years or
>so.  Knowing Xerox' corporate culture, though, I can't picture them 
>leaping quickly to appropriate a clever idea from some small operation
>in Cupertino.  Therefor, I assume these ideas were indigenous.

And the Lisa had been out for three years by that time.  And work on it
would have been going on internally at Apple for at least two years
before that.  Compared to Xerox's 1981 technology, Apple had made some
quite significant contributions by 1986.

What ideas may be indigenous to Xerox is irrelevant:  they aren't suing
anyone, and no one is suing them.  HP and MicroSoft are being sued for
infringing on Apple's rights by stealing Apple's intellectual property.
If Xerox wants to sue HP and MicroSoft for the same thing, that's their
right.  To hold that Apple made no original, significant contributions to 
their interface beyond what they PURCHASED from Xerox is ludicrous.

>What really burns me up about this whole deal is that I was nerving myself
>for the hideous expense of buying a Mac 2.  Now I can't -- my morals
>are flexible, but not THAT flexible.

Are you saying you're mad at Apple because they made you so mad that you
can't waste your money on their overpriced box any more?  That reasoning is 
about as twisted as your ideas on ownership of intellectual property, so I
guess no one should be too surprised.

--alan@pdn