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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!oucsace!csachs
From: csachs@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Colin Sachs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.misc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!
Summary: Apple vs Xerox...
Message-ID: <935@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>
Date: 16 Dec 89 06:50:31 GMT
References: <4540@ur-cc.UUCP> <18158@netnews.upenn.edu>
Followup-To: comp.sys.misc
Distribution: usa
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept., Athens
Lines: 38

(Jeffrey M White) writes: [In reply to (Chris Newbold) re:Xerox suit)

>   I'm no legal expect, but I don't think Xerox has a very good case.  For one
> thing, why sue now?  The Mac/Lisa interface has been out for almost 8 years, 
> with virtually no change. 

About two years ago (I think), Lotus thought about bringing suit against 
a rival copycat spreadsheet company producers of TWIN.  Well, Lotus dropped
that suit.  The basis of the suit (from my recollection) was a "look and feel"
argument.  That is, TWIN sufficiently looked like and responded like the
Lotus 1-2-3 package to be an infrigement of Lotus' copyright.  But they
forgot about the granddaddy of all spreadsheets: minicalc (I think thats
the name).  Anyway, this thing ran on CP/M systems and had rows and columns
and command keys, just like, you guessed it Lotus 1-2-3 before Lotus Corp
existed.  I think the people at Lotus realized that the "look and feel" thing
would backfire (the makers of the first spreadsheet could sue them for
copywrite infrigment) if they went through with it.

> It's hardly like Apple all of a sudden came out
> with an interface that looks like the Xerox one. 

No.  But the fact remains that Xerox had the graphical interface and windows
concept long before the Apple Mac's even existed.  And Apple did not
develope the concept independently.  

> Note that this case is
> different from the Apple/Microsoft case, in which Apple and Microsoft already
> had an agreement.  Apple sued because they felt the changes MS made in version
> 2.0 of windows weren't part of their previous agreement.  

No.  I think they sued because they felt that the changes MS made in v.2.0
of windows put that product and all PC machines in direct competition with
the Macintosh computers.  Apple set themselves up for the suit from Xerox
by pushing their so-called proprietary rights to the graphic/windows
interface.  Plain and simple.

-- 
Colin Sachs - csachs@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu