#Lotus Wins Lawsuit
37 messages in this thread
The Friday Business Day section of the New York Times reports: "The Lotus
Development Corporation gained a significant victory yesterday when a
Federal judge in Boston ruled that its copyright had been infringed by
competitors whose software imitates the command structure of Lotus's 1-2-3
spreadsheet program." [byline: John Markoff.]
Goodbye, Windows 3!
isn't there a Lotus for Windows?? –Eet–
Director of Mayhem
Extra Terrestrial Imports, Ltd.
No Windows version of Lotus yet. What I was implying was that Lotus'
success in this suit is Good News for Apple's suit against Microsoft and
Hewlett Packard for copying the Mac.
?? Why "Goodbye, Windows 3!" ??
I'm confused. thx – kev
I am making the radical leap that Lotus' prevailing against the folks who
marketed spreadsheets with 1-2-3's Look and Feel will lead the courts to
find for Apple in Apple's suit against Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.
Apple is claiming that Windows and New Wave infringe upon the Mac GUI.
Oh. I thought the Lotus suit was because it was almost an identical copy
down to keypresses?
If Apple won a look&feel on GUIs, don't you worry about the Amiga being
next in line for trouble?
Kev, as Larry Phillips sez, "who needs workbench," and for sure certain the
Amiga CLI isn't look-and-feel compatible with anything.
Kevin,
No…the Amiga GUI is significantly different than a Mac GUI. Use
the "10 foot rule"…to a person standing 10 feet from the item(s) under
consideration…do they look the same? If yes to that, then could the user
of one, instantly be familiar with the other in all (most) aspects?
Don
Uh oh, say goodbye to the WB Trash Can!
Nah….trashcans are ok, just so they don't look like the Mac's
trashcan.
Don
If you really want to nitpick, MS-DOS looks very much like CPM to me.
Dan,
Ah true, but the question is whether that 'look and feel' was
unique enought, and the author's original work before it comes under the
copyright laws.
For example, If I designed an operating system that booted from the
Z: floppy or the Y: hard drive and used the drive designator as the system
prompt. That may be an original method of numbering drives, but it's
certainly not different enough to make it unique. I may be able to
copyright the idea of using those particular letters, I certainly couldn't
copyright the idea of using drive letters as a system prompt.
Or taking it a step further…if two artists are sitting side by
side on a beach, painting the sunset…each is entitled to a copyright on
their own painting…but neither is entitled to a copyright on the idea of
painting a sunset on the beach.
Don
Well, they're on a roll:
Lotus is _now_ suing Borland over Quattro, and Santa Cruz Operation over
SCO Professional.
They claim those products also violate Lotus copyrights on keyboard
commands and screen images.
Gonna be a long, hot, summer. Maybe NeXT will go after everyone who has a
3-D NeXTish GUI? Hope not.
Maybe Sperry Corp. should sue the entire industry because all
computers owe their heritage ("look and feel") to Univac. 🙂
This is all getting too complicated for me…
John,
I don't believe there is a problem with the trashcan. When Apple sued
DRI over GEM (and DRI wimped out by settling rather than go to court) one
of the main issues of contention was the trashcan. Both on the Mac and in
GEM the trashcan is on the desktop (workbench, whatever you want to call
it). With the Amiga, it is always in a window. You can't drag it to the
workbench.
-sja
Maybe we could change the trash can into a shredder!
Ron
Actually, a lot of people who use the Mac don't even like the look of the
trashcan. There are PD programs out there that change it's icon. My
favorite is one that makes the trashcan icon a toilet. The lid flips up
when you put something in it!
Chris
Chris:
Have you seen the Amiga Trashcan Icon shaped like a toilet?
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Ah, yes, but does it close the lid and make a flushing sound? (Hey!
There's an idea for 2.0!!)
If it doesn't lower the lid, I can hear MANY, MANY female users complaining
about "leaving the lid up".
(of course, a large <GRIN!> accompanies this message)
Rick Stevens/MicroBotics
However, if Apple wins, they also lose (to Xerox).
Ah, sweet mystery of life (who will win the look and feel suit
eventually?).
Not the consumer, I bet.
BobS
"Stupidity is a capital crime …"
Except Xerox is already out of the picture because Xerox failed to assert
copyright for eons.
Then why are they suing Apple? Do they or do they not have any chance?
I'm not a lawyer, so the above is just a question for my edification.
BobS
"Stupidity is a capital crime …"
I was under the impression that Microsoft was ALREADY licensing
technology from Apple with respect to Windows 3.0. Also, I doubt that
Apple would go after Microsoft considering all the products that Microsoft
offers for the Mac…
One last note: Windows 3.0 is no Mac (or Amiga) DOS…
Tony,
Microsoft and Apple did have a licensing arrangement, but Apple is
claiming that it only dealt with Windows 1.0 and are suing Microsoft over
Windows 2.0 (and by extension 3.0).
And yes…that suit has been active for about a year…Apple is
indeed suing Microsoft.
Don
Thank you for your clarification re: Microsoft and Apple licensing.
That gives me a thought:
Apple, as you say, is in the process of suing Microsoft, saying that
Windows 3.0 "looks and feels" like the Mac OS. OTOH, Apple is trying to
get potential DOS users to use MacIntosh because the user interface is more
intuitive than its competitors. Can you have it both ways? Apparently
so…
I saw the article and practically had a heart attack. This is a flat out
disaster for the software industry and for computer users. Lotus won on
look and feel. As you know, I had to study this case and the programs
involved very closely when I was doing a spreadsheet program a couple of
years ago. VP Planner and Twin do have the same look and feel, but they
are very far from identical to 1-2-3. In fact, they both have significant
features 1-2-3 lacks. As industry pundits have been saying since the suit
began, this is the same as Ford suing Chrysler because Chrysler put the
steering wheel, brake pedal, and gas pedal in the same relative positions
as Ford. The ruling is a real blow against interface standardisation.
My only hope is that it will be overturned. The ruling stated that an
interface can be patented, something I think higher courts may have trouble
swallowing.
-Brian
I wonder if there's someone or someone's estate who can claim the rights to
QWERTY? There should be some sizeable royalty payments due, yes?
Excellent idea. Heck, if a currently active auto manufacturer could prove
they invented the steering wheel, brake pedal, gas pedal layout, there's a
fortune to be made there, as well.
-Brian
Brian:
Actually I think (although I'm not real sure) that Chevrolet did in fact
design the layout of the pedals in their 1914 model 490. It was quickly
adoped by all the GM cars after that, and finally by Ford in 1929.
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
I think it is a dumb comparison, since any rights would have expired by
now. This is a current patent, good for some years to come, and should not
be taken lightly if it does affect currently available GUI's.
Matthew:
While the GUI issue IS a current thing, I was trying to say that we SHOULD
take it very seriously! I guess I didn't really make myself clear in the
last message.
Selden was a manufacturer of electric cars, and a rather small one at that,
and when they sued one of the larger car companies for using an internal
combustion engine, nobody took it that seriously. Well, the judge decided
to agree with Selden, upholding the validity of their patent, and soon ALL
the major car manufacturers were paying royalties to Selden who by that
time had stopped making cars alltogether, and was just collecting money
from everyone else! It's possible that with Apple sueing folks left & right
that we could get into the same sort of situation (everyone paying
royalties to Apple!
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Brian:
There was a while where ALL auto makers had to pay a royalty to a small
company called Selden for a patent infringment, they supposedly had a
patent on the internal combustion engine!
-Mike Schiller
In sunny Fort Lauderdale
Nowhere near the fortune I'm going to make after I get the exclusive
rights to the Helvetica and Times Roman typefaces…
— John
Did you develop them? Did you file for protection before they were
released to the public? Did something significantly similar already exist,
patented or not? Prior art and release to the public domain will determine
if one can protect an idea. I design machines that are patented, and I
have to go through this crap all too often.
I don't think Windows infringed on Lotus, but the other cloned spreadsheet
programs like Twin.
Windows did not infringe on Lotus. The Lotus suit has been expected to
influence Apple's suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.