jym@APPLE.COM (08/01/89)
Company A and Company B have a "Look and Feel"-based legal dispute and
settle on two different interfaces. The two are much the same, except
that A's has pop-up menus and a mailbox icon in the upper right corner
and B's has pull-down menus and a mailbox icon in the lower right
corner.
Now suppose I come along with an interface which, Emacs-style, has loads
of user-definable options. My interface makes it possible to choose between
pop-up menus and pull-down menus. My interface lets you put a mailbox icon
in any of the four corners (and anywhere else on the screen). Thus, it is
possible to customize the interface to work like the A's interface or B's
interface.
Does that mean A *and* B can slap a "Look and Feel" on me? Does the answer
depend on whether or I not I've provided templates to help my interface look
like their interfaces? If I've documented how to do it?
<_Jym_>paul@morganucodon.cis.ohio-state.edu (Paul Placeway) (08/02/89)
nli!jym@APPLE.COM writes:
Company A and Company B have a "Look and Feel"-based legal dispute and
settle on two different interfaces. The two are much the same, except
that A's has pop-up menus and a mailbox icon in the upper right corner
and B's has pull-down menus and a mailbox icon in the lower right
corner.
Now suppose I come along with an interface which, Emacs-style, has loads
of user-definable options. My interface makes it possible to choose between
pop-up menus and pull-down menus. My interface lets you put a mailbox icon
in any of the four corners (and anywhere else on the screen). Thus, it is
possible to customize the interface to work like the A's interface or B's
interface.
Does that mean A *and* B can slap a "Look and Feel" on me? Does the answer
depend on whether or I not I've provided templates to help my interface look
like their interfaces? If I've documented how to do it?
<_Jym_>
I would hope not. Sure, A or B could sue the individual purchaser
(hopefully not successfully) for makeing a "Look and Feel" like their
product using your product, but you as the supplier *should* be in the
clear.
Look at it this way: if this were not true, then Apple could have sued
IBM for producing a product (in this case, the IBM PC) that could be
configured to "look and feel" like a Mac.
Personally, I think that any company that launched a suit against the
producer of a configurable system should be laughed out of court.
We'll see see what happens with Apple and HP...
-- Paul Placewaychase@Ozona.orc.olivetti.com (David Chase) (08/02/89)
paul@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >nli!jym@APPLE.COM writes: >> [What about customizable interfaces?] >I would hope not. Sure, A or B could sue the individual purchaser >(hopefully not successfully) for makeing a "Look and Feel" like their >product using your product, but you as the supplier *should* be in the >clear. >Personally, I think that any company that launched a suit against the >producer of a configurable system should be laughed out of court. You laugh, I'll just be disgusted. Consider the record industry and the manufacturers of cassette and DA tapes and tape recorders. No copyright violations are committed by the company manufacturing these things, but the fact that these devices *enable* copyright violations by consumers has lead to lots and lots of time in and out of court. If somebody cared enough, life could be made pretty unpleasant for somebody selling a configurable product. David
boerner@ut-emx.UUCP (Brendan B. Boerner) (08/02/89)
In article <PAUL.89Aug1142615@morganucodon.cis.ohio-state.edu> paul@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: [...deleted...] >Look at it this way: if this were not true, then Apple could have sued >IBM for producing a product (in this case, the IBM PC) that could be >configured to "look and feel" like a Mac. Or IBM could sue Apple because a Mac (running something like SoftPC) could be configured to look like an IBM PC/XT/AT. [...deleted...] > -- Paul Placeway Brendan ------------------ Brendan B. Boerner Phone: 512/471-3241 Microcomputer Services The University of Texas @ Austin Internet: boerner@emx.utexas.edu UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!boerner BITNET: CCGB001@UTXVM.BITNET AppleLink: boerner@emx.utexas.edu@DASNET#