Apple and lawsuits...Apple BEING sued

[Tom Buskey]

On Aug 22, 2012 5:14 PM, "Ken D'Ambrosio" <ken at jots.org> wrote:
>
> While, on the face of things, I agree that there are *more* lawsuits
nowadays,
> part of me points out that there's a whole lot more at stake than there
was,
> say, 30 years ago.  Here are some lawsuits from down the ages that come to
> mind:
>
> Ashton Tate (dBase) vs. FoxPro
> Hayes vs. Everyone Else
> Lotus vs. Borland
> Apple vs. Microsoft
> SEA vs. PKWare
>
> The interesting thing here is that in the three suits where the
plaintiffs were
> clear victors in the courtroom (Hayes, Lotus, SEA), they eventually lost
in the
> court of public opinion -- SEA almost overnight.  (SEA was the creator of
the
> old .ARC file compression format; they sued on violation of look and feel
when
> PKWare came out with a much faster version that -- gad-zooks! -- used
similar
> command line parameters.

And lifted source code from ARC, which its copyright did not allow.
Because of that loss, Phil Katz made sure the Zip format was freely
copyable.

>Furor was quick and lethal to SEA; .ZIP supplanted it
> within, I'd say, two months -- and only that long because of magazine lead

zip also compressed more w/ less cpu.  When most were on 286en transmitting
over 1200 or 2400 baud, 5% smaller, faster, made it worth converting  the
whole BBS's 200mb of files, even if it took a few days.  Many converted to
lha when that came out.

> times, etc.)  Apple mostly lost, but you'll note that the MS Garbage Can
> disappeared from the Windows 1.0 desktop after that.  And dBase just plain

I'd say apple is doing ok now.

> *lost*: apparently, it's best to ensure you (rightfully) own copyright to
your
> own product before suing others for violating it.  A lesson SCO would
have done
> well to have remembered.
>
> So, I guess my point is that even winning litigation doesn't ensure a
victory
> in the marketplace.  I'll be curious to see what happens to
litigation-happy
> Apple as time goes on.
>
> -Ken
>
>
> On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 07:34:04 -0400 Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote
>
> > On 08/21/2012 08:10 AM, Ben Scott wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Bill Sconce <sconce at in-spec-inc.com>
> > > wrote: >>     "[I]t's WWIII in the patent universe. Remember how we
used to
> > > say >>     that no one would ever be so foolish as to start a patent
war,
> > >>     because it'd be destructive to everyone in it? Guess what? Apple
> > >>     decided on going thermonuclear, and here we are. Talk about your
> > >>     infinite loop. How wasteful is this?
> > >   Very apt.  And unfortunate.  :-(  The mobile tech field is an
> > > absolute warzone right now.  Just about everybody is suing just about
> > > everybody else.  It's a disaster.  It's not helping the industry, nor
> > > the public, or even the companies themselves.
> > >
> > >   I seem to recall a headline on /The Onion/, "Google Accidentally
> > > Sues Themselves".
> > These suits are very complex but interesting. I had been watching the
> > SCO lawsuits since the very beginning. The warm body of SCO is still
> > trying to revive SCO vs. IBM, even after  filing for chapter 7. The
> > Apple vs. Samsung is becoming rather nasty. And, of course there is
> > Oracle vs. Google. I prefer looking at Groklaw on these issues because
> > PJ and her successor are both legal professionals and generally report
> > it correctly.
> >
> > --
> > Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
> > Boston Linux and Unix
> > PGP key id:3BC1EB90
> > PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90
>
>
>
>
>
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