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by webwielder 4424 days ago
I think they're actually talking about copyright. Apple famously lost a big copyright infringement "look and feel" case against Microsoft, partially on the grounds that software can't be copyrighted. This was one of the catalysts for the switch to patents as a means of defending software novelty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer%2C_Inc._v._Micro....
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ghaff 4424 days ago
Another interesting case during roughly the same period was Lotus vs. Borland in which, in this case, the court basically found that it was OK to imitate another program's menu layout and contents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Int....
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cursork 4424 days ago
Yeah. Bad use of 'patent' maybe. Just interesting that the same arguments are provably going around and around.
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