NEWS ANALYSIS : Apple Case Ruling to Aid Software Developers : Technology: Observers say the decision not to grant copyright protection for the ‘look and feel’ of the Macintosh will make it easier to come up with new programs.
In firmly rejecting Apple Computer’s claim that Microsoft Corp. had illegally copied the “look and feel” of the Macintosh computer, a federal judge in San Francisco has helped support innovation in computer software, legal experts said Monday.
Some issues in the 5-year-old copyright infringement case, which had the potential to turn the personal computer industry upside-down by halting sales of Microsoft’s enormously popular Windows software, may still have to be resolved by a higher court.
But specialists in intellectual property law said Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s ruling Friday is one of several recent court rulings that limit the types of computer software features that can be protected by copyright. That should make it easier for software developers to create new programs.
The decision, which expanded on an April ruling that dismissed most of Apple’s cause, also eliminates a major headache for Microsoft and makes it highly unlikely that Apple will collect any of the $5.5 billion in damages it had sought in the lawsuit. Hewlett-Packard, a co-defendant with Microsoft in the lawsuit, still faces a few relatively minor claims relating to its New Wave software.
Apple has not said whether it will appeal.
Apple sued Microsoft and H-P in 1987, alleging that Windows and New Wave--software programs that work on IBM-compatible personal computers--had illegally copied the software features that had made the Macintosh a success. Unlike traditional PCs, which rely on text commands, the Macintosh is controlled by a series of graphic symbols that are manipulated with a pointing device known as a mouse.
This “graphical user interface” made the Macintosh far easier to use than IBM-compatible PCs, and Microsoft clearly mimicked the Macintosh interface with its Windows program. New Wave is based on Windows.
But Apple ran into a number of problems in trying to assert its claim that Windows violated the Macintosh copyrights. To begin with, Apple in 1985 had granted Microsoft a license to some of the graphic elements that were contained in the first version of Windows. In addition, many of the key Macintosh features were originally created not at Apple, but at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center.
Microsoft argued that the individual elements of the Macintosh interface were either covered by the licensing agreement, were not original to Apple or were ineligible for copyright protection. Copyrights cover creative expressions, as in books or movies, but not ideas or functions, which are covered by patent law.
Apple tried to counter this by saying that even if individual elements of the Macintosh software could not be protected, the overall “look and feel” was. Apple attorneys were eager to get the matter before a jury, reasoning that anyone who saw Windows and the Macintosh side by side would conclude that Windows was a copy.
But many computer industry experts feared that if Apple were granted such broad protection, software innovation would be severely stifled. The first company to hit upon a convenient and appealing way of performing certain functions would have an effective monopoly, and it would be impossible for other companies to create new products that built upon the standard way of doing things.
Walker, in a lengthy decision, essentially upheld this view. To accept Apple’s arguments, he said, “would allow it to sweep within its proprietary embrace not only Windows and New Wave but, at its option, also other desktop graphical user interfaces. . . . Apple’s copyrights would hold for programs in existence now or in the future--for decades.
“One need not profess to know for sure where should lie the line between expression and idea, between expression and competition, to sense with confidence that this would afford too much protection and yield too little competition.”
A similar set of issues are at stake in a number of other lawsuits--including a heated fight between Lotus and Borland International--and legal experts said Walker’s decision should help clarify the law.
“The courts are now taking a much harder look at what constitutes copyrightable expression,” said Richard L. Bernacchi, a computer law specialist at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles. “Vague concepts about overall appearance make it very hard for software developers to conform their actions to the law, and the courts are starting to say that they will not accept such vague concepts.”
William Schwartz, an attorney with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, called Walker’s decision “very sweeping . . . it acknowledges the importance of software as functional as opposed to literary works and acknowledges the importance of standards.”
