gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (07/27/89)
SF Chronic, page B1, 22 July 89, reports:
"Apple Dealt Stunning Legal Blow
By John Schneidawind
Chronic Staff Writer
Apple Computer Inc. suffered a stunning legal defeat yesterday when a
San Francisco federal judge ruled that two of the company's biggest
competitors had a legal license to almost all of the popular screen
displays found on its best-selling Macintosh computer.
In a proposed ruling that could be changed later, U.S. District Judge
William Schwarzer limited Apple's claim that Microsoft and
Hewlett-Packard copied the "look and feel" of Apple's popular Macintosh
computers.
The preliminary decision extended Microsoft Corp.'s 1985 software
license from Apple to much of Microsoft's own Windows 2.03 program,
which uses a Macintosh-like approach to displaying information on a
computer screen.
The decision also lifts a legal cloud from Microsoft licensee
Hewlett-Packard, which has developed its "New Wave" personal computer
with a software assist from Microsoft.
Schwarzer tentatively ruled that certain features of Microsoft and
Hewlett-Packard's programs were protected by a 1985 license agreement and
were "out of the case". Microsoft and its licensee Hewlett-Packard are
"entitled to partial summary judgement on Apple's infringement claim
insofar as it is based on the use in Windows 2.03 of visual displays in
Windows 1.0," the judge wrote.
Windows 1.0 is the version of the computer screen developed by Microsoft
under the 1985 license agreement with Apple.
The case has been closely watched by the computer industry as a
potential landmark in the developing field of "look and feel" copyright
law.
The ruling, to be issued in written form sometime next week, does not
end Apple's suit.
But it places the burden on Apple to prove that it has copyright
protection on two popular features of its Macintosh screen: the
appearance and movement of symbols known as "icons" and the use of
so-called overlapping window displays."
(it goes on with some chitchat and commentary...)
I don't yet have a copy of the ruling but expect to get one. I'll
post it in gnu.misc.discuss.
John
--
John Gilmore {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
"And if there's danger don't you try to overlook it,
Because you knew the job was dangerous when you took it"