Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!amdahl!esf00
From: esf00@uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple gets favorable ruling
Keywords: Apple, Microsoft, lawsuits, HP
Message-ID: <11LkHe9QAu1010Teu6c@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 29 Mar 89 01:33:22 GMT
References: <6271@bsu-cs.UUCP> <1068@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <37812@think.UUCP> <568@madnix.UUCP> <564@apexepa.UUCP> <27940@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: esf00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Beige Building Full of Bright Engineers, Inc.
Lines: 30

In article <27940@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>
>You can actually look at this two ways. You can say that Apple is keeping
>people from using the best technology. You can also say that everyone else
>is trying to jump on the Apple bandwagon instead of going and inventing the
>next quantum leap in the interfaces. 
>
Or you could say ....

 .... that Apple now has lawyers who remind John Scully that >copyrights<
belonging to commercial organizations (as opposed to private individuals)
are basically "use it or lose it" items.  If Apple does not present a
vigorous defense of its copyrights (insofar as the law is concerned),
then the copyright is null and void [can you spell 8086 ucode?].

Gassee's "family jewels" talk (usually cleaned up to "crown jewels" in
the family-oriented trade press) suggests that Apple is not eager to
put its visual interface (or its operating system) into the public
domain.

Whether a particular piece of Apple's visual interface is copyrightable
or not is probably of much less concern than whether the copyright on the
>entire< visual interface is defended.
-- 
Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00

[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]