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From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.hp,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Apple Challenges HP New Wave, MS-Windows, Potentially OS/2 PM
Message-ID: <1514@looking.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 88 18:46:37 GMT
References: <5480@well.UUCP> <5492@well.UUCP> <535@nunki.usc.edu> <1473@alliant.Alliant.COM> <512@cunixc.columbia.edu> <8037@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 21

In article <8037@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> laba-5ac@web5h.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Erik Talvola) writes:
>I believe that you are right, but I am also pretty sure that Lotus purchased
>VisiCorp (who produced VisiCalc), so Lotus probably did have a right to claim
>that the look and feel of the Lotus 123 was theirs, since they owned the 
>company which created it.  

You may be sure of this, but that doesn't make it true.

Lotus purchased Software Arts, Inc., the authors of VisiCalc.  They did not
purchase VisiCorp, the publishers and marketers.  VisiCorp was merged with
Paladin, which later went Chapter 11, and has recently been brought out
again as VisiCorp.

There is a lawsuit against Lotus at this time, (a bit late, mind you)
suggesting that the reason that Lotus was able to buy out Software Arts
was that Lotus drove Software Arts and Visicorp out of business by copying
the spreadsheet interface of Visicalc.

The issue is far more complex than that, but there is some truth to that claim.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473