[Patents] Re: Patents digest, Vol 1 #286 - 9 msgs

[Edward Avis epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk]

>From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>

>>Any real professional in the software business knows that this business
>>works quite well with copyright and sometimes even without that.
>
>Sorry Hartmut, but that is pretty much nonsense.  Look at two big
>cases in the US - Apple v. Microsoft and Lotus v. Borland.  Both
>Apple and Lotus lost in courts trying to use copyrights to protect
>their user interface "logicality" or whatever.

Exactly.  Copyright protects far enough to give protection to the
author, but not as far as user interfaces.  Monopolies on user
interfaces would be terribly damaging to competition and to users of
software, without any evidence that they'd increase the amount of user
interface R&D that gets done.  As was pointed out at the time: 'Imagine
if every car manufacturer had to arrange the pedals in a different
order'.

You are confusing 'the best balance of copyright and competition' with 
'what Apple, Lotus and some other big companies would like to happen'.

-- 
Ed Avis
epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk