Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!sungod!davidsen
From: davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (William Davidsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: SEA vs. ARC makes the legal journals
Message-ID: <693@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 8 Jun 89 18:23:29 GMT
References: <54816@linus.UUCP>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 52

In article <54816@linus.UUCP> jcmorris@mbunix (Morris) writes:

| The dispute has now started to appear in legal journals as background
| information regarding the evolution of new legal theories and precedents.
| The following material will appear in the September 1989 issue of
| _Legal_Economics_ in the column "Technology Update" (pp 14 ff) by G.
| Burgess Allison.  He is discussing the development of the so-called
| "intellectual property" cases now in the courts or likely to find their
| way there.
| 
| Used with the permission of the author.  All quoted material copyright
| (c) 1989 G. Burgess Allison.
| 
| ----- BEGIN EXCERPT -----
| 
|         [Discussion of recent intellectual property rights events
|         like the Quarterdeck patent, the Apple look-and-feel lawsuit,
|         and Tandy's portable hinge design]
| 
	[ ... ]

|       In the spirit of ongoing shareware improvements, Phil Katz developed
|   a new and improved archival package that read and wrote compressed files
|   rather substantially faster than the SEA software.  Of course, to maintain
|   compatibility with the horde of already-archived files in the market,
|   the public-domain "PK" software read (and optionally, wrote) archive
|   files using the same file format that the SEA software used.  So far,
|   so good:  Competing features, compatibility, and benefits for the users.
|   Regrettably, SEA didn't quite see it that way and took PKWare to court.
|   Even though neither of these products are sold commercially, even though
|   the software and file formats had been openly discussed, and even though
|   it was plainly obvious that Katz had rewritten his software from scratch,
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|   SEA now claimed copyright infringements on everything--most notably on the
|   use of ".ARC" as the *file extension* for archive files.  PKWare was forced

  The court didn't see it that way. Several newspapers reported that SEA
claimed that PKARC was based on the original SEA code. One expert
witness gave his opinion as to the origin of the code, and the case was
imediately settled out of court. The testimony was sealed, along with
some other details.

  If your friend was trying to write a factual legal book, he should
check this. I can only guess what the testimony was which resulted in PK
giving in completely, but my guess is that it was not "plainly obvious"
that the code was all original.

  NOTE: I have no axe to grind, I just think that this may be a case of
sloppy research and casts doubt on the rest of the book in my mind.
	bill davidsen		(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
  {uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me