🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <shepard-0408951558300001@macrls.tcg.anl.gov> shepard@tcg.anl.gov (Ron Shepard) writes:
>In article <danpop.807548756@rscernix>, Dan.Pop@mail.cern.ch (Dan Pop) wrote:
>
>[...]
>>And Apple copied somebody else's work.
>
>Apple did it, in part, by hiring the people from PARC who were doing the
>work there.  I have mixed feelings about this, but at least to some extent
>I believe that ideas should be allowed to go with the people who think of
>them.

Tell this to IBM and the THOUSANDS of other companies that DON'T AGREE,
and have SUED and WON!

>
>Also, there was a rumored exchange of money (and stock?) between Apple and
>XEROX in the early '80s.  I remember the speculation at the time was that
>this was enough to protect Apple.
>

OH RIGHT!  "We own part of one another, so let's not get angry if the other 
uses OUR ideas to eat into our market share!

>[...]
>> And Apple
>>isn't the first company to come with a commercial product with a GUI.
>>Apollo Domain had it before the Mac.  Apple was the first with a
>>product targeted to the mass market.
>
>
>>Has Apple sued MIT for X or OSF for Motif or DEC for the VMS GUI?
>
>They did kick around Digital Research when they tried to sell their
>Mac-alike (GEM wasn't it called?).  I don't think it made it to the
>courts, but DR did change things so that it didn't look so much like the
>Mac.
>
>And didn't someone else try to sue MIT over the idea of a backing store
>for refreshing overlapped windows?
>
MAN, everyone keeps talking about overlapping windows, etc....  I really 
don't think that even XEROX was the first to come up with such an idea.
BESIDES, did you ever stop to think that compiler features my have something
to do with it?  On a remote terminal, such programming would be VERY difficult
in BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and MANY other languages.  In languages like C, it
is CHILDS PLAY!  This was ESPECIALLY true on the older systems where you 
treasured every byte!

Steve

BTW such a standard, and immediately obvious, idea should not, and technically
under the law IS NOT patentable.

A patent is only to apply to unique ideas which are not immediately obvious.
Copyrights apply to identical renditions.  Hence, even the "look and feel" 
item isn't proper.