rfg@ics.uci.edu (Ron Guilmette) (12/16/89)
In article <129294@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> mrm@sun.UUCP (Marianne Mueller Kreuscher) writes: >The radio says Xerox is suing Apple for stealing the Star/Smalltalk >user interface for the Macinstosh. Yep. I just heard it too on the Nightly Business Report. Xerox sues Apple for $150 Million (and that ain't small change). Perhaps someone from LPF will comment as to whether this is viewed as bad (after all, it is another one of these suits that they have been fighting against) or good (i.e. is Xerox doing this simply as a means of lodging the most intense possible protest over Apple's own suits?). If Xerox is doing this as a way to send a strong and clear message to Apple and to the rest of the industry that this kind of legal harrasment should stop, then that's good. If they just see a quick way to make a few bucks, then that's not so good (but it is nice to see Apple getting a taste of its own medicine anyway). // rfg
njc@nsscb.UUCP (Neil Cherry) (12/19/89)
I am glad Xerox is giving Apple a case of its own medicine. I actually disapprove of _SOME_ look and feel law suits. Especially the ones where the idea seems like common sense. This I beleive will hurt the industry, but there is a fine line between what is and what is not legal in the form of "idea copying". NJC
meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (12/21/89)
In article <1173@nsscb.UUCP> njc@nsscb.UUCP (Neil Cherry (STARGRP)) writes: |I am glad Xerox is giving Apple a case of its own medicine. I actually |disapprove of _SOME_ look and feel law suits. Especially the ones where the |idea seems like common sense. This I beleive will hurt the industry, but there |is a fine line between what is and what is not legal in the form of "idea |copying". I agree. I have wondered if truly creative new look & feel stuff should fall under "design patents" , or if we need some new categories of whatever. But that's a separate issue from the Apple crap. I mean, the desktop/office metaphor just wasn't that original an idea. I have a couple of dozen friends who all, along with myself, had discussed just such things at Ga. Tech before we knew what a Parc was, and before the Mac was even a (serious, anyway) gleam in Jobs' eye. I'm sure we weren't alone! -Miles