🚀 go-pugleaf

haydens@natasha.juliet.ll.mit.edu (Hayden Schultz x3685 g42) writes:

>What I'd like an Apple supporter to explain to me is why is it ok for
>Apple to borrow ideas developed by other companies in the creation of
>the Mac, but then to restrict others from incorperating the ideas that
>Apple created into new products? Is your answer that noone has the
>right to borrow ideas from anyone else and that Apple simply got away
>with taking some ideas from Xerox because Xerox didn't sue fast
>enough?

My response would be that no one has the "right" to borrow some types of
protected expressions from others, that user-interfaces _might_ be one
of those types of expressions, and that Apple got away with it because
1) we don't know if it's protected, 2) they paid Xerox lots of bucks for
the rights to borrow it, and 3) on the elements they didn't pay Xerox
for, Xerox waited too long to assert a claim to rights.

I don't know if user-interfaces will turn out to be protected
expressions within the realm of copyrights or not. If they're not, then
Apple did nothing wrong borrowing from Xerox, but they were kinda stupid
for licensing the stuff from Xerox. If they are, then Apple was smart to
license things from Xerox, Xerox was stupid waiting so long to sue on
the rest of the items, and Apple may or may not have been stupid to
effectively waive their right to claim that Motif, NeXTStep, Open Look,
Open Desktop, InterViews, ET++, et al are infringing interfaces (and, of
course, waive their right to protest interfaces derivative of these).

I rather hope that user interfaces turn out not to be copyrightable. 75
yeas is much too long to wait in the computer industry (heck, 17 years
for patents is much too long to wait). I also rather hope that, once
this is decided (in both the copyright and patent cases), the Congress
does something sensible and implements a short-term protection on
innovation in the software field, because I think the effects of a lack
of protection aren't going to be very good for innovation (sure, you can
argue that there was some innovation before the era of lawsuits --
although, with the Pacman suit among other, I think most people could
see it coming a long time ago, but it's clear that the pace of
innovation picked up massively around the time that user interface
copyrights were become more of a viable notion). Companies simply will
not throw away 9-figure sums of money on research that they can't
protect in some way. Universities, of course, don't want to protect
their research (yeah, right, have you checked your university's
copyright restrictions? Their patent-licensing office? At least
universities pay lip service to free exchange of ideas, though), so
innovation will go on, but how many universities have 9-figure budgets
for any course of research?

--John

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John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1991 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.