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From: wes@obie.UUCP (Barnacle Wes)
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's lawsuit against HP and Microsoft
Message-ID: <115@obie.UUCP>
Date: 4 Apr 88 00:56:30 GMT
References: <2703@tekigm2.TEK.COM> <8501@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: the Well of Souls
Lines: 24
Keywords: Apple Mac HP Microsoft Windows OS/2 New Wave Frivolous Litigation
Summary: Time to pick nits again...

In article <8501@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>, jonathan@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Jonathan Altman) writes:
> 3.  The precedent set in the IBM vs. large-Japanese-mainframe-maker
> who copied look and feel (and whose name escapes me now) of IBM OS,
> without copying the code means that if Apple pushes this case, they
> may very well win a right to a percentage of the income created by
> borrowers of their developments.

If you're talking about the suit between IBM and Hitachi, you've got
it horribly wrong.  Hitachi was caught buying stolen IBM technical
documents from undercover FBI men.  The documents reportedly contained
technical information on IBM computer systems; the accounts I read did
not specify hardware or software.  The press probably wouldn't know
the difference anyhow.

As far as I know (and I read pretty extensively) there have not yet
been ANY court settlements on the idea of copyrighting "look & feel."
There have been several lawsuits, all settled out of court.  Again, if
you know of one, please post relavent information, including a good
published source - I'd certainly like to study it.

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