Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!killer!richardh
From: richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Phil Katz (PKARC author) sued by SE
Summary: repeat after me: "look and feel, look and feel..."
Message-ID: <4499@killer.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jun 88 05:24:06 GMT
References: <5912@megaron.arizona.edu>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 36

In article <5912@megaron.arizona.edu>, gudeman@arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes:
> But the article posted to the net implied that the law suit is over
> the fact that pkarc does the same thing as arc, and over the
> similarity in names.  And the _only_ thing original about arc is
> (possibly) the format of the archives.  The idea of archives, the user
> interface and the naming convention (prefix of "archive") have been
> around (at least) since early UNIX in the form of ar.
> 
> It would be disastrous for the computer community if courts started
> ruling that data formats are copyrightable.  For example, you might
> even be accused of copyright violation you wrote a program to read
> files in WordStar format and change them to ascii.

I don't remember the exact wording of the originally posted article, but
my impression was that SEA is claiming 1) that PKARC looks an awful lot
like their ARC utility (compare the help screens, compare the /v displays,
etc.) and 2) they have some sort of right to the use of the name ARC.
Number one dates all the way back to the copyright wars over video games
back in the late 70's when it was established that even though a game
ran on a pc (rather than on a dedicated game box), if the graphics and/or
sound was similar enough (judgment call here) it was a copyright violation.
Since then a number of companies have been zinged on that one, the most
well known one being what Apple did to Digital Research over GEM. As for
number 2, this one is even more open to judgement. What right does SEA 
have to the name ARC? What constitutes a major enough variation to keep
from being an infringement? I noticed that Wendin changed the name of
PC-UNIX to PCNX; I wonder if it was under duress from AT&T? These are
questions that have nothing to do with code _per se_. It's not that simple 
and there are potentially big $$ to be made here.

When you're in business, it never hurts to remember the golden rule
(1980's version): "He who has the gold, makes the rules." ;-)

richard hargrove
...!{ihnp4 | codas | cbosgd}!killer!richardh
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