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Apple Moves Again To Squash Look-Alikes
An unnamed correspondent writes: "Looks like Apple is at it again, according to this ZDNet article Apple is now going after anything that looks like OS X, regardless of having the Apple logos removed. I couldn't care less if Apple releases OS X for Intel, I will not do business with a company that behaves like this. Better be careful, they might sue slashdot for using the OS X-like Apple icon."
The long and short of litigation in the USA is the person with the most money wins.
no sig.
I've noticed the iMac/eMachines example being hauled out a couple of times to defend Apple in their witch hunt against OSX-like themes.
However, eMachines was a product clearly trying to divert potential iMac purchasers to their eerily-similar product. In short, they used the look, then tried to convince people it was their own look. This is clearly wrong.
Now we come to theme designers. If there is a product involved, it has already been purchased, and certainly not with the OS X look. The OS X skins are free, downloadable, and they all acknowledge Apple's creation of the OS X look, either through the word "Aqua", "OS X", and most (if not all) acknowledge that their themes are adaptions of Apple's Aqua GUI interface in the accompanying readmes. The theme creators are certainly not trying to deceive anyone into thinking they created and/or own the Aqua look. The themes are being created for people who have already downloaded or purchased a themeable GUI, and wish to emulate the Aqua GUI look without having to purchase the necessary hardware and underlying OS. I have little reason to believe Apple will create their own Aqua skins for GNOME, KDE, XMMS, WindowBlinds, etc.
In effect, Apple is trying to leverage their hardware and software sales by defending the UI in any way possible, saying "if you want to have a GUI with anything similar to our look, you also have to buy our hardware and software."
Stardock didn't create the Aqua-like look; a user created it using Stardock's tools, and the company is providing a way for the creator to distribute that theme. Apple has never gone after the individual theme creators, as far as I know; only the entities that allow those themes to be distributed through their websites.
I'm not saying whether this is morally or legally correct; I'm certainly not knowledgeable or wise enough to go that far. However, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Theme creators aren't trying to pass off their copies as the real thing; they freely acknowledge that someone else created the Aqua look. Apple can try to claim copyright protection on the entire thing, but that might have to include the placement of widgets and icons - "trade dress" can be a tricky thing, and I'd love to see them try to take out the blue-and-white diagonal-striped progress bar *glances at Mozilla progress bar in certain themes*, or bubbly buttons.
Can you say "quagmire"? I knew you could!
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Trade dress refers to packaging and display stuff. If you make something that looks like coke so that people buy it thinking it is coke, then yes Coca-Cola can and should come after you. If, however you make something that tastes like coke and sell it in a diferent package so that no one confuses it with coke then that is just fine. You can even advertise that it tastes like coke.
Likewise, if you sell software in an OSX box that isnt OSX then by all means Apple should go after you. They have a duty to their customers to ensure that when someone buys something that they think is OSX they get OSX. But in this case, they are taking something that everyone knows isn't osx and making it "taste" like osx.
First of all, Apple did not steal the GUI from Xerox. Apple paid Xerox for certain pieces of the GUI concept. Apple invented many other GUI elements.
Second, Apple lost their suit against Microsoft because Apple had licensed some GUI elements to Microsoft, and the court felt that this was enough to justify the wholesale rip-off of the Mac GUI by MS.
Third, there are at least two forms of intellectual property protection for design: design patents, and trade dress. While I'm not sure about design patents, I believe that with trade dress you are required to enforce the IP or risk losing it.
Fourth, Apple puts significant effort into GUI research and development. Read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines if you want an idea of how seriously they take the matter. To rip them off of all their hard, expensive work against their will is just plain wrong.
The GUI constitutes a large part of Apple's advantage over their competitors, open source or otherwise. Yes, they are competing against GNOME and KDE--since OS X is Unix, they're now in the same game as Linux, BSD, etc. If RedHat could just ship RH X with an Aqua-like theme, it would hurt Apple's sales.
IMHO, GUI design is the one area where open source hasn't come close to commercial software, and possibly never will. Good GUI design is vastly different than other forms of programming, and cannot be broken down into the kind of distributed, modular development model that open source uses. Even the best open source GUIs out there are really just imitations of the Mac OS and Windows, with some pretty skinning features. When will open source developers get it that GUIs are more than just shiny buttons and widgets? Consistency is incredibly important, but it's not to be found between GNOME apps, for instance.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this one. Somebody, please make an open source GUI that is genuinely revolutionary. Don't just copy Windows. Oh, and please don't make yet another web browser...
It's another thing to blatantly use the same thin lines that adorn all the windows (and the case of the iMac). Copy the Bondi blue exactly by looking up its Pantone color. Placing an apple in the exact same areas of the screen, with the piece cut out, just like the logo.
OS X is not totally open source, folks. The underlying system is, by the GUI is entirely Apple (And rightfully so. If they didn't own the GUI they would own none of OS X, and wouldn't be able to make a profit on it [*cough* Redhat trying to make money off free products *cough*]).
If you're going to tweak your KDE 2 theme to have translucent windows (if this is at all possible) be my guest. If you want to put a blue Apple logo on your menu bar, consider yourself screwed.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
What makes you folks think Apple is acting in an unusual fashion? Haven't you folks ever heard of the concept of 'trade dress'???
Go out there and try selling a soft drink in a wasp waisted bottle shpae and see how long you last before Coca-Cola is serving you papers.
Slashdot seems to be the center of the rip-off universe. It seems to be the prevailing opinion that it's just fine to go out and rip off copies of ANYTHING that people have worked hard to create in order to earn a living. You folks really should GROW UP.
The Supreme Court has defined trade dress as the "'total image and overall appearance'" of a good, further specifying that it "'may include features such as size, shape, color or color combinations, texture, graphics, or even particular sales techniques.'" Furthermore, evaluation of trade dress infringement claims requires the court to focus on the plaintiff's entire selling image, rather than the narrower single facet of trademark.
The part that I'm concerned about, the selling image, is why I believe Apple has the right to go after these people. True, they are not losing customers to this, but what happens, I believe is an overall dilution of their product. People are buying the cube not necessarily because it's the latest Mac, but because it's a CUBE. I know tons of PC users who want it, and they want it solely for the design of it. Now imagine if three other companies release cube shaped computers. How special will Apple's be? How much R&D will go to waste because you can pick one up anywhere? The same thing goes for the Aqua look. True, there's a whole lot more to OSX than Aqua, but at the same time, its just another aspect of it, and if every operating system looks like it, then its not so special. Aqua's look is Apple's property, and it will hurt sales to have everything start look like it.
Patents do not have to be enforced to remain valid
WRONG. If you do not enforce a patent, and allow an industry to build up around it, THEN try to enforce the patent you will get laughed out of court. The perfect example of this are the Xerox GUI patents - in 1989 Xerox brought suit against Apple for infringing them - and got tossed out on their ass because they had waited too long.