🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <2722@tekigm2.TEK.COM>, by timothym@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Timothy D Margeson):
> Now, add to this trial by jury a small, helpless company like Apple, being
				    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	Come on. The quarter just ended, apple announced  $1 billion in revenue.
	I bet Hewlett Packard is only about $6-8 billion per year, not
	that much bigger than Apple. Also, microsoft only about $300 million.
	They might try to capitalize on the "2 guys in a garage image"
	but an attorney for the other guys would have no trouble pulling this 
	apart.

> robbed of it's profits by the GIANTs MicroSoft, Hewlett Packard (and just
> think if IBM were invovled). Oh, that poor Apple (say's the jury).
> 
> So, you can be sure Apple will want momma joe, a farmers wife from Froth,
> Kentucky on the jury, but not tom, a computer literate from Houston, Texas.
> Be sure, Apple WILL be able to select the jury, or at least deny ANY of those
> possible jury members whom might understand the real differences they should
> be looking for in a copyright case.

	Recent changes to peremptory challenges only permit a fixed  
	number of peremptory challenges per side.  Thus, out of 20 
	possible jurors, they may only be able to bounce 8 for non-legal
	related reasons.  (I don't know the numbers, but they're not
	as lenient as they used to be.)
> 
> Apple probable will win this case, but even if they don't, they can then use
	Not bloody likely.
> the case as a precent and copy like hell anything they want. So, it's a win
> win, case for Apple, and lose lose for HP and MS. IBM too for that matter.
> A third benefit from the case, win or lose, is that Apple will slow down any
> developement of Presentation Manager, 3rt party Windows applications and the
> like.

	Presentation manager doesn't need anybody else to slow it down;
	they seem to be perfectly able to shoot themselves in the foot.

	Besides, all the spate of idiotic jury decisions means that the
	*REAL* court decisions are made by an appellate court, usually
	a panel of 3 old, crusty judges that are a lot harder to hoodwink
	than a bunch of jurors.  I've heard that about 95% of the $1million
	plus damage awards are reversed on appeal.

> 
> Apple is not being dumb by any means. Also remember they won a similar suit
> against Digital Research. SO a precent in Apples favor already exists. Another

	They did not win any such suit.  Their suit was settled out of 
	court.  Therefore, no precedent was established.  Precedent only
	arises from a decision.  

> case, similar to this, was Microstuff (Crosstalk) vs. Mirror (a Crosstalk 
> clone). Microstuff won on the look and feel aspects of the case, lost on the
> aspects. So Mirror was changed so that the screens didn't look like Crosstalks,
	
	But this was because Mirror was an *exact* clone of crosstalk, and
	because Mirror advocated openly in their advertising that they were
	a REPLACEMENT for Crosstalk.  Not that they had a product embodying
	many of the same features, but an EXACT interchangeable replacement.
	Nowhere does Microsoft or HP come even close to spouting the same
	thing.

> but everything else worked the same. Including the script language.
	
	Yes.  This moves them back from being a "copycat" to being 
	"compatible".  Besides, the suit only covered the screen layout.
	Programming languages can't be copyrighted.  Look at all the
	trouble Postscript got themselves into because they started 
	calling Postscript a programming language, in their own manuals.
	You can't use the name but you can write a compatible language.
	They won the battle but lose the war.

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