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iMac Look Protected by Copyright
The settlements mean that the preliminary injunction granted by a Federal judge last November, which halted sales of the Emachines eOne on the grounds that it too closely resembled the industrial design of Apple's iMac, may be a taste of the future.
Apple's focus in these suites has been on violations of their "trade dress" -- essentially, seeking copyright which covers the appearance and design of a product rather than its functional aspect. The CNET article points out that "[h]istorically, the courts have not extended trademark protection to a product's design, but more recently, some have begun to grant trademark protection to 'stylized' items on the grounds that novel industrial design can communicate a distinctive idea or image."
Often, however, manufacturers file design patents as well, especially for products with new or unique industrial design. Given Apple's emphasis on ergonomics, color and ease of use, which concretize the abstract results of years of experimentation and testing, it seems likely that design patents will play an expanding role in the protection of their designs. But by no means will Apple be the only company fighting to establish brand identity with distinctive shapes and colors, and taking on imitators in court over trade dress or design patent violations.
dublin (the person who submitted this article) notes, "This could be ugly, because unlike regular patents (which can be readily challenged on the following grounds), design patents have no requirement for either 'utility' or 'non-obviousness to one reasonably schooled in the art.'" Can challenging or affirming a design patent, especially in the moving-target world of personal computers, be anything other than heavily subjective?
Even if the original decision was jutified, (no one is arguing that either the eOne or the Daewoo machines are based on anything other than the shape and color-appeal of the iMac), does this place us on a slippery slope? As dublin puts it, "Does Apple now have universal first dibs on anything wrapped in clear and aqua plastic? (If yes, then how about lime or the dreaded tangerine?)"
Apple's patent on "Computer Enclosure", can be downloaded from HERE.
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Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The points in my original submission or this story were edited by the /. staff - most of it was done quite well and added important content, but a couple of things were lost.
/. as a heretic (being in general a supporter of our current patent system) and feel strongly that much of the "reform" wanted by the community here would simply remove any viable protections for small/startup/entrepreneurial companies while leaving the large ones protected by thier inherent economic/political might. For all its warts, the US patent system is one of the most effective systems in history to ensure a level playing field for all, so we should tamper with it only with extreme caution and certainty.)
/., and does, in fact, matter.
I made the point that the CNET article did not explicitly reference design patents, but I expected that Apple and others had them and could be expected to enforce them, sometimes to the detriment of consumers. The point was to open a more general discussion of alternative mechanisms which could be used to render technologies proprietary. (Remember the big flap a couple of years ago - Motorola sued Qualcomm for building a phone that folded, saying it violated their design patents on the StarTAC. Fortunately, the courts ruled that MOT couldn't own the generic idea of a folding phone (since everyone knew, and their product name even alluded to, the fact that they stole the idea from Star Trek.) Still, the MOT attack delayed QCOM's Q-phone until it was no longer a serious competitive threat. Not that that's hurt their stock price any...[grin])
You're right that the CNET article doesn't have anything to do with patents, but I was intentionally trying to raise the issue of some of these other mechanisms by which we can expect companies large and small to attempt to excercise control or block competitors. As I was quoted in Timothy's post, I'm particularly concerned about potential abuse of design patents. (BTW, I am on record here on
Also, my article submission indicated that I thought this particular decision was well-justified, since there was a clear attempt to copy the iMac, even though I don't think for a minute that anyone would confuse these Windows boxes for real Macintoshes. Still, even if a good call in this case, this could be a slippery slope since it is necessarily subjective.
Finally, if this sort of limitation becomes viewed as effective, I raised the spectre of ID squatters protecting everything they can think of this way and then selling all the good and necessary ones off to the highest bidder. (I considered doing this myself a number of years ago, since PDA's still don't have nearly the functionality I described in writing nearly a decade ago. If I'm not going to get venture money myself, then I could at least sue someone who did - but that's really cheezy now isn't it? And yes, in that context, a "z" in "cheezy" seems just right...)
The point of discussion I was trying to provoke is, "Are there any effective safegaurds against abuse of other parts of our IP system that may not have recieved as much scrutiny as patents for software?"
In this context, in contrast to what some other posters seem to think, this topic is appropriate for
Oh, and for the record, I think most of these clear and whatever things are kind of ugly, although the ones that are plain clear (no other colors, like the Palm IIIe) are interesting. And as an aside, it's a shame Apple didn't learn from DEC's experience with puck mice - they used them on their VAXstations and DECstations at least up until the Alpha came out, and they also were a pain to grab and use without looking.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Perhaps if I were to make a computer that looks like an oven, smells like an oven (hell, even bakes like an oven)
I did that with my Celeron 300A a while back.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
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The initial post and the responses show that most people don't know the difference between Copyright, Trademark, and Patents. A trademark is totally different from a copyright. If you are doing trade or performing services under an identity, that identity can be protected. That identity can be stuff like your company name, logo, tag lines, colors and in Apple's or Coke's case the look of your product package. You can't trademark it unless you're using it in business. If you want to go the next step you can spend the money to register your trademark and you then get to change your little TM to an R. Copyright is about protecting a creative work, not a business identity. It can be a written work, a drawing, or a song - or a recording of a song which gets a (p) instead of a (c). Technically anything you create is instantly copyrighted the second you create it, but of course you probably still want to take better measures than that. Patent is about protecting inventions/innovations and has already been explained to death here. Suffice it to say it performs a different purpose and getting a patent is a different process with different results.
The classic example is the case against Guiness who were sued by an artist who showed them a dance piece he had created for one of their advert campaigns.
Guiness rejected this and went on to make the advert anyway with subtle differences, although with the concept and execution almost the same.
The artist lost the claim.
Although this is the company who's ex director recovered from parkinsons after being let out of gaol early on grounds of ill health...
Working for the (other) man
Thank you Lotus, now of IBM, for giving us the "Look and feel" copyright lawsuits -- which blazed the trail for this.
No they didn't. This has nothing to do with "look and feel" -- it's about the patentable design of a designed object. Try starting up a shop to build cars with the classic lines of a Ferrari, and see how many seconds you last.
Apple spent time and money coming up with the design of the iMac, and came up with something that looked great, so people wanted to buy it. If you copy that design, you're living off their time and money, and someone else's design vision. They should have some law -- be it copyright, design, or trademark -- to protect their work
More broadly, why does slashdot give a fuck? This isn't a software patent, or an algorithm patent. Nobody's ability to write code has been compromised. It's still possible to produce copies of the iMac which will run its software -- but they won't look like iMacs, because they won't be iMacs. There is no sense in which preventing people from ripping off designers is infringing freedom of speech.
If people have a problem with patents in general, let them make it. But please don't hijack the cause of opposition to software patents for your ideological crusade. Get the classic car enthusiasts on your side, or something. The iMac's deisgn is not information. It's not code. It doesn't want to be free.
So Apple now owns the idea of a tranlucent-polycarbonate-ovoid PC. I see no problem with this. While many folks are claiming Apple has patented the all-in-one PC they haven't - just their particular (and very distinctive/very unique) take on it. Should someone else come out with a glittery-squishy palmtop (the Koosh-top?) they can patent that.
Nationial Public Radio's Friday, March 05, 1999 "Talk of the Nation" program has an excellent over-view of the issue. Their program blurb reads:
The URL is http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn-- Michael
BTW - the Koosh ball is also patented
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Coca Cola sucesfully sued, under the same "trade dress" laws Apple is using to go after Daewoo or eMachines or whoever, to protect the SHAPE of the Coca Cola bottle!
That's probably the precident Apple used in the case. That and the fact that the iMac knockoff artist company ADMITTED IN A PRESS RELEASE that they were going to try to ride the wave of the iMac to sucess.
The rip-off artists basically shot themselves in the foot by: a) not doing their research on trade dress law, and b) mouthing off to the press.
Also, did you know that UPS has a patent (or trademark, I forget which) on that brown color they use for everything from their trucks to their uniforms? Yup. No one else can legally use "UPS Puke Brown", without UPS's permission.
And, from the looks of some of the other posts, it appears that Slashdot has to be reminded again:
Under copyright/trademark law, if you do not aggressively defend your intellectual property, you LOSE the rights to that same property!
Apple has NO CHOISE but to go after those who would violate it's trademarks. Nor does anyone else who produces intellectual property. Not even Linus, remember when he had to put the smackdown of a couple of nare-do-wells who were going to auction off a bunch oh *linux*.* domain names for nefarious ends?
IANAL, but AFAIK, the ONLY IP that you do NOT have to aggesively defend in order to keep the rights, is a patent, which a) is a fscked up system to begin with, and b) expires much sooner than other IP anyway.
john
Imagine all the people...
There is way too much confusion on /. about how the intellectual property regime works. Let me clarify for all you knee-jerks the differences between copyright/patent/trademark/trade secrets: Copyright protects authors automatically (no registration required) for original works in a fixed medium (e.g. a play, a novel, source code.) Patent gives an individual (or company) a short monopoly (17 years?) during which no one can copy your patented invention unless they have your permission. The logic of patents is to encourage innovators to share their ideas with the public in exchange for temporary protection from free riders. Remember, after the patent expires, we can all use the invention freely. Trade secrets are protected by state law and include any proprietary information of commercial value that is learned during the course of employment or some other special relationship. Trademark protects the "goodwill" of a name or design. If Joe Average thinks of your company when he sees the word "Grblatz," you have trademark rights in "Grblatz." Similarly, if Joe Average thinks of Apple when he sees rounded aqua and semi-opaque plastic computers with built-in monitors and small keyboards, Apple has a trademark on the iMac design. When Apple sued Daewoo and eMachines, it was because Apple felt that those two companies were building machines that looked like the iMac in order to confuse consumers into buying the eOne or eMachine ON THE BASIS OF APPLE'S IMAC MARKETING EFFORTS. There was no design patent issue here. I am beginning to see that many people on slashdot are lashing out at the patent system based on the perceived abuses of Amazon, etc. I submit that the real problem with patent is not the system in general, but the legnth of the monopoly rights granted to a patent holder. Two decades might have been appropriate for light bulbs and typewriters, but software evolves too quickly and by the time software patents expire, the software is long since useless. The war cry for patent reform should be "1 year monopoly rights for software!" Catchy, isn't it?
However, with that said, this could set a dangerous precident going back to the GUI look and feel. Sure, it's too late for Microsoft or Apple or Xerox to stop GUI operating systems with the typical functionality, but let's take the Aqua theme that Apple developed for it's OS. A while back, Apple asked various theme sites to remove the Aqua clones, but based on the specific targets of the removal, these themes used the Apple or MacOS logo in the theme, which could be considered a trademark violation; Apple apparently didn't have problems with people copying the theme, just the trademarks logos.
Now sure, this case was a out-of-court settlement, no precident has been set, but this could get Apple or Microsoft or some other OS design a bit braver and take more drastic action against copy-cat clones of the OS system beyond just the standard C sure, we still have the result of the Apple/MS Look-and-Feel lawsuit that set a precident, but those can be overturned as times change.
Even beyond just the OS, what about application software? Can Netscape sue MS over look-and-feel of IE compared to NS? Can WinZip sue the countless zip clones? What about a unique feature of an application program that is then extended by others to be a common control in later application programs?
I think the key thing comes down to with something like this is that is there a difference between the design of a physical object and the design of a virtual object. As said in one of the DCMA article discussions yesterday, if someone takes a physical object, a new physical object has to be created to replace it, while one can easily take a copy of a virtual object, and still leave that virtual object for others. Because physical objects move much slower than virtual ones, is it more important to protect the designs of physical objects over virtual ones? I believe so, but there needs to be some precident to distinquish the two cases. We only have a few such precidents in place, and unless a law is passed soon regarding this, the solution will be decided by frivolous lawsuits.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Coca-Cola was the first company to ever do something like this. They patented the famous "Coke bottle". That was years ago, though, and I don't seem to remember hearing about any complaints.
Do I think this one's right? I'm not sure. This isn't "look and feel." It's also not a software thing. And it's certainly a blatant violation of something, anyway. It should probably be more of a trademark violation than a patent violation, though.
The intent for eMachines and FuturePower to rip off Apple's design and profit from it was quite clear; even more blatant than Windows. For that alone they deserve a smackdown; this was nothing more than outright plagiarism. It's also about more than translucent plastic, which many Slashdotters seem to be forgetting.
But as I said, is it right? I don't know this time. I think it just might be.
Can we please be more careful about what words are thrown around here? There is a vast difference between trademarks, copyrights and patents. The slashdot item title says "copyright", which is totally wrong. The description and a bunch of the posts here say "patent", which is also totally wrong. Everyone here is aware that these are different things, aren't they?
</rant>
This is a trademark dispute. You trademark a logo, a name, a distinctive look (like coke bottles, or UPS puke brown), et cetera. These are things that the general public notices to recognize your product. The purpose of trademark law is to keep you from purchasing some other product by mistake from a disreputable company that disguises its product as the one you actually want.
You're in a hurry, so you rush into the grocery store, grab a case of those distinctively shaped Coca-cola bottles, pay, and leave, and only when you get back to your car do you notice that you've actually bought some of my Greg's Sparkly Brown Water. (Costs the same, tastes like crap!) Without trademark law, there's nothing that Coca-cola can do about it, and I can profit off of unobservant consumers that are foolish enough to make this mistake. (Muahahahaha.)
Obviously there is a big gray area around the question: how similar do products have to be before ignorant consumers start to mistake one for the other? Beige boxes are so common that no one would think they're looking at a particular brand just because the box is square and beige. The judge who granted the preliminary injunction in this case, though, decided that Apple had done enough marketing, and the iMac look was distinctive enough, that consumers could be confused by the look of the eMachines and Daewoo boxes into thinking that they were iMacs and buy them by mistake.
This case was only about one product trying to impersonate another to take advantage of ignorant consumers, it has nothing at all to do with copyright or patent law, and nothing keeps anyone from building another all-in-one computer, or building a blue transparent computer - but trying to cash in on someone else's distinctive look is, IMHO, clearly wrong.