W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) (10/05/88)
SAN JOSE, CA - August, 1988 - After months of postponements, Hewlett-
Packard responded to Apple Computer's "look and feel" copyright suit
last week, denying all claims of infringement and countersuing Apple for
unfair business practices and violations of the anti-trust laws.
In documents filed with the U.S. District Court here, HP maintains that
the Mac's graphical interface is based on work done by other companies -
in particular, Xerox Corp. The documents further state that Apple
obtained copyright registrations on the screen display fraudulently by
not disclosing to the U.S. Copyright Office that the Mac's display was
derived from Xerox's work.
"In copyrights and patents, if there is prior art, it has to be reported
at submission", said Bob Frankenberg, group general manager for the
information systems group at HP. "Prior art, whether protected or in
the public domain, can make your patent or copyright invalid."
In its countersuit, HP went one step beyond Microsoft in claiming that
Apple's suit violates the Sherman Antitrust act. Because the Macintosh
is the leader in the area of graphical user interfaces -- a development
that gives the manufacturer an edge in the market -- HP believes the
suit is only a "sham" designed to stall and injure New Wave in the
market.
Already, several Hewlett-Packard customers and developers have decided
to wait to see how the suit is resolved before buying or developing for
New Wave, HP's Frankenberg said. But he would not specify how many
customers or the value of the purchases that are involved.
While the defenses and counterclaims are predictable, HP's allegations
of lost business may be very serious for Apple, said Doug Derwin, a
copyright lawyer in Santa Clara, California. "That gives them something
that ordinarily does not exist in copyright cases: hard damages." If
Apple loses the copyright case, it may end up having to pay HP three
times its lost sales, amounting to perhaps millions of dollars in
damages, Derwin said.
An Apple spokeswoman said the company believes HP's claims are without
merit.
Apple suffered a setback earlier in the week when the judge disqualified
one of Apple's law firms - Fenwick, Davis & West - citing conflict of
interest. HP, which is also a Fenwick client, asked the court to
disqualify the firm in early June.
With a tentative trial date for the Microsoft license issue just four
months away, the loss of Fenwick, Davis & West could be a serious blow
for Apple, Derwin said. "Apple is going into the most difficult,
dangerous part of the suit just when it has lost the firm that has been
doing most of the work in this area for five years," he said.
Apple Computer denied that the ruling will have any effect on its case.
--Keith Petersen
Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL
Uucp: {ames,decwrl,harvard,rutgers,ucbvax,uunet}!simtel20.army.mil!w8sdzjbrown@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jordan Brown) (10/07/88)
In article <> W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (Keith Petersen) writes: >In documents filed with the U.S. District Court here, HP maintains that >the Mac's graphical interface is based on work done by other companies - >in particular, Xerox Corp. The documents further state that Apple >obtained copyright registrations on the screen display fraudulently by >not disclosing to the U.S. Copyright Office that the Mac's display was >derived from Xerox's work. My understanding is that the Apple patent is on the pull-down menus, not on a "graphical interface". If you examine the Xerox work (or for that matter Sun et al) you find really very little resemblance to the Apple work. On the other hand, comparing Mac with MS-Windows, you find a great deal of similarity. (A Mac user could move to MSW with no effort; the same is definitely *not* true about moving to X windows, for instance.) Unless you consider Apple to own all bitmap interfaces using mouses as pointing devices, they conflict only with a few other products - notably MSW, formerly GEM. (Take a look at how little DRI had to change GEM to make Apple happy.)