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EspañolAPPLE COMPUTER, INC. V. MICROSOFT CORPORATION
(Redirected from Apple v. Microsoft)
:''This article is about the "look and feel" copyright lawsuit between Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) and Microsoft Corporation. There have been other lawsuits between the two companies.''
'''Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation''', 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) was a copyright infringement lawsuit in which Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) sought to prevent Microsoft Corporation and Hewlett-Packard from using visual graphical user interface (GUI) elements that were similar to those in Apple's Lisa and Macintosh operating systems. Some critics claimed that Apple was really attempting to gain all intellectual property rights over the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces, and perhaps all GUIs, on personal computers. Apple lost all claims in the lawsuit, except that the court ruled that the trash can icon and file folder icons from Hewlett-Packard's now-forgotten NewWave windows application were infringing. The lawsuit was filed in 1988 and lasted four years; the decision was affirmed on appeal in 1994, [1] and the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by Apple was denied.
Apple had previously agreed to license certain parts of its GUI to Microsoft for use in Windows 1.0. When Microsoft made some changes in Windows 2.0, such as overlapping windows and other more Macintosh-like GUI features, Apple filed suit, and then added additional claims to the suit when Microsoft released Windows 3.0.
Apple claimed the "look and feel" of the Macintosh operating system, taken as a whole, was protected by copyright, and that each individual element of the interface (such as the existence of windows on the screen, the fact that they are rectangular, are resizable, overlap, and have title bars) was not as important as all these elements taken together. After long arguments, the judge insisted on an analysis of specific GUI elements that Apple claimed were infringements. Apple came up with a list of 189 GUI elements; the judge decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the Windows 1.0 agreement, and most of the remaining 10 elements were not copyrightable—either they were unoriginal to Apple, or they were the only possible way of expressing a particular idea.
In a twist midway through the suit, Xerox filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming Apple had infringed copyrights Xerox held on ''its'' GUIs. Xerox had invested in Apple and had invited the Macintosh design team to view their GUI computers at the PARC research lab; these visits had been very influential on the development of the Macintosh GUI. Xerox's lawsuit appeared to be a defensive move to ensure that if ''Apple v. Microsoft'' established that "look and feel" was copyrightable, then Xerox would be the primary beneficiary, rather than Apple. The Xerox case was dismissed because the three year statute of limitations had passed — Xerox had waited too long to file suit.
''Apple Computer Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.'' is the most complicated software copyright lawsuit to date. Software developers and the Macintosh user community followed it with great interest. Some observers cast Apple as the villain, saying that after failing in the marketplace, it was trying to use the courts to corner the market on an idea that was benefiting the world, and if Apple won, the precedent would limit software developers' creative freedom. Apple's critics added that even if this were legally and ethically correct behavior, Apple wasn't the inventor of the GUI or the desktop metaphor in the first place, with many ideas taken from Xerox. Others said Microsoft were the bad guys, brazenly stealing from Apple's work and flouting the law, and that a Microsoft win would set a precedent that would allow big companies to steal the core concepts from any software developer's work and get away with it.
As it happened, the court's approach seemed to invalidate the copyrighting of a broad "look and feel" of a piece of software, though this was not decisively stated in the court's ruling. The fact that Apple and Microsoft had entered into the licensing agreement for Windows 1.0 made a large part of the case a mere contractual matter rather than a matter of copyright law — much against Apple's preference — so it was not necessary for the court to set a precedent in its ruling. It remains unclear what would have happened if Apple had acquired a software patent purporting to secure the "look and feel" of the Macintosh user interface as an invention, and had then pursued Microsoft and HP under patent law. Had Apple been able to win a look and feel suit, in theory this precedent may have hindered the development of the X Window System and other open source GUIs. (However, in practice the Xerox GUI would have been eligible to be considered as prior art under USC Section 102, and would have potentially greatly limited the scope of any such hypothetical Apple patent, if not invalidating it completely.)
In 1997, five years after the lawsuit was decided, all lingering infringement questions against Microsoft regarding the Lisa and Macintosh GUI, as well as Apple's "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit against Microsoft, were settled when Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser over Netscape, and Microsoft agreed to continue developing Office and other software for the Mac for the next 5 years, and purchased $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. [1] [2]
In recent years, Apple has resumed threats of litigation in this area. One target has been Stardock, whose CEO Brad Wardell once joked that Apple's lawyers had him on speed-dial. Apple was not pleased when skins and themes for WindowBlinds, IconPackager and DesktopX looking similar to their Aqua GUI were released in mid-2000, over six months before the release of Mac OS X.
Apple has copied certain innovations from other companies; for example, tabbed dialogs appeared on the Macintosh after IBM used them in OS/2. Since the settlement of the ''Apple v. Microsoft'' lawsuit, various features of the Macintosh and Windows GUIs have been incorporated into the windowing environments of unrelated third parties.
The Mac OS X dock, derived from the NeXTSTEP dock, is very similar to the dock of RISC OS, which featured its so-called iconbar as early as 1987. The RISC OS iconbar itself is similar in appearance to the icon bar in Windows 1.0. In the original Windows implementation, icons represented minimized application windows, and each icon could be dragged into position on the tiled desktop above when it came time to re-expand them. Given this history of "bars" filled with iconic representations of objects pertaining to the user's current desktop, it would be hard to make any conclusions about the actual origin of the technologies involved, which ultimately boil down to user interface designers grouping high-level controls on a common strip.
★ Notable litigation of Apple
1. Kawamoto, Dawn; Heskett, Ben; Ricciuti, Mike. "MS to invest 0 million in Apple", CNET News, August 6, 1997
2. "Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement", FindLaw, August 5, 1997
:''This article is about the "look and feel" copyright lawsuit between Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) and Microsoft Corporation. There have been other lawsuits between the two companies.''
'''Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation''', 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) was a copyright infringement lawsuit in which Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) sought to prevent Microsoft Corporation and Hewlett-Packard from using visual graphical user interface (GUI) elements that were similar to those in Apple's Lisa and Macintosh operating systems. Some critics claimed that Apple was really attempting to gain all intellectual property rights over the desktop metaphor for computer interfaces, and perhaps all GUIs, on personal computers. Apple lost all claims in the lawsuit, except that the court ruled that the trash can icon and file folder icons from Hewlett-Packard's now-forgotten NewWave windows application were infringing. The lawsuit was filed in 1988 and lasted four years; the decision was affirmed on appeal in 1994, [1] and the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by Apple was denied.
Apple had previously agreed to license certain parts of its GUI to Microsoft for use in Windows 1.0. When Microsoft made some changes in Windows 2.0, such as overlapping windows and other more Macintosh-like GUI features, Apple filed suit, and then added additional claims to the suit when Microsoft released Windows 3.0.
Apple claimed the "look and feel" of the Macintosh operating system, taken as a whole, was protected by copyright, and that each individual element of the interface (such as the existence of windows on the screen, the fact that they are rectangular, are resizable, overlap, and have title bars) was not as important as all these elements taken together. After long arguments, the judge insisted on an analysis of specific GUI elements that Apple claimed were infringements. Apple came up with a list of 189 GUI elements; the judge decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the Windows 1.0 agreement, and most of the remaining 10 elements were not copyrightable—either they were unoriginal to Apple, or they were the only possible way of expressing a particular idea.
In a twist midway through the suit, Xerox filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming Apple had infringed copyrights Xerox held on ''its'' GUIs. Xerox had invested in Apple and had invited the Macintosh design team to view their GUI computers at the PARC research lab; these visits had been very influential on the development of the Macintosh GUI. Xerox's lawsuit appeared to be a defensive move to ensure that if ''Apple v. Microsoft'' established that "look and feel" was copyrightable, then Xerox would be the primary beneficiary, rather than Apple. The Xerox case was dismissed because the three year statute of limitations had passed — Xerox had waited too long to file suit.
| Contents |
| Impact |
| Other GUI borrowing |
| See also |
| References |
Impact
''Apple Computer Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.'' is the most complicated software copyright lawsuit to date. Software developers and the Macintosh user community followed it with great interest. Some observers cast Apple as the villain, saying that after failing in the marketplace, it was trying to use the courts to corner the market on an idea that was benefiting the world, and if Apple won, the precedent would limit software developers' creative freedom. Apple's critics added that even if this were legally and ethically correct behavior, Apple wasn't the inventor of the GUI or the desktop metaphor in the first place, with many ideas taken from Xerox. Others said Microsoft were the bad guys, brazenly stealing from Apple's work and flouting the law, and that a Microsoft win would set a precedent that would allow big companies to steal the core concepts from any software developer's work and get away with it.
As it happened, the court's approach seemed to invalidate the copyrighting of a broad "look and feel" of a piece of software, though this was not decisively stated in the court's ruling. The fact that Apple and Microsoft had entered into the licensing agreement for Windows 1.0 made a large part of the case a mere contractual matter rather than a matter of copyright law — much against Apple's preference — so it was not necessary for the court to set a precedent in its ruling. It remains unclear what would have happened if Apple had acquired a software patent purporting to secure the "look and feel" of the Macintosh user interface as an invention, and had then pursued Microsoft and HP under patent law. Had Apple been able to win a look and feel suit, in theory this precedent may have hindered the development of the X Window System and other open source GUIs. (However, in practice the Xerox GUI would have been eligible to be considered as prior art under USC Section 102, and would have potentially greatly limited the scope of any such hypothetical Apple patent, if not invalidating it completely.)
In 1997, five years after the lawsuit was decided, all lingering infringement questions against Microsoft regarding the Lisa and Macintosh GUI, as well as Apple's "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit against Microsoft, were settled when Apple agreed to make Internet Explorer the default browser over Netscape, and Microsoft agreed to continue developing Office and other software for the Mac for the next 5 years, and purchased $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. [1] [2]
In recent years, Apple has resumed threats of litigation in this area. One target has been Stardock, whose CEO Brad Wardell once joked that Apple's lawyers had him on speed-dial. Apple was not pleased when skins and themes for WindowBlinds, IconPackager and DesktopX looking similar to their Aqua GUI were released in mid-2000, over six months before the release of Mac OS X.
Other GUI borrowing
Apple has copied certain innovations from other companies; for example, tabbed dialogs appeared on the Macintosh after IBM used them in OS/2. Since the settlement of the ''Apple v. Microsoft'' lawsuit, various features of the Macintosh and Windows GUIs have been incorporated into the windowing environments of unrelated third parties.
The Mac OS X dock, derived from the NeXTSTEP dock, is very similar to the dock of RISC OS, which featured its so-called iconbar as early as 1987. The RISC OS iconbar itself is similar in appearance to the icon bar in Windows 1.0. In the original Windows implementation, icons represented minimized application windows, and each icon could be dragged into position on the tiled desktop above when it came time to re-expand them. Given this history of "bars" filled with iconic representations of objects pertaining to the user's current desktop, it would be hard to make any conclusions about the actual origin of the technologies involved, which ultimately boil down to user interface designers grouping high-level controls on a common strip.
See also
★ Notable litigation of Apple
References
1. Kawamoto, Dawn; Heskett, Ben; Ricciuti, Mike. "MS to invest 0 million in Apple", CNET News, August 6, 1997
2. "Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement", FindLaw, August 5, 1997
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