🚀 go-pugleaf

   In article <48451@ut-emx.uucp> timbur@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Tim Burnett)
   writes: IMHO, Apple feels that the 3+ years they spent designing the
   original interface and 7+ years maintaining it gives them the right to
   protect the work. I agree.  But I believe they only have a right to
   protect the "gestalt". They don't have the right to overlapping
   windows, icons, trash cans, etc. However, I do believe if you
   double-click a icon, get a window, and then can drag the icon to the
   trash, that It is a mac-interface and Apple has the right to sue.

I disagree. There is little practical difference between double
clicking to open an application or clicking with the right mouse
button. Apple simply made one choice that millions of users now have
gotten used to. By protecting such trivialities, you are mandating
by law that these users continue to use Apple computers.

Even for less trivial issues in user interface design, it is highly
questionable that society would derive any benefit from protecting
such designs via copyrights or patents. Such protection was not needed
in the past, and it is doubtful that it will be very useful in the
future.

Apple does have a right to copyright the images used to represent
trashcans, screens, etc. But just like you cannot protect innovations
in the English language by any legal means, Apple should not have a
right to protect the visual language of the Macintosh user interface
beyond this.

					Thomas.