Apple 'Lawyering Up' as Patent Suits Grow

[aegisdesign]

Anyone else had the notion that with Apple winning the majority of these cases... they just might revisit the mother of all Patent infringements -WINDOWS?

Apple aren't going to 'win' the GSM patent dispute. They can't. They HAVE to licence GSM. It's just a matter of how badly they'll lose.

The Apple v Microsoft battle over Windows in the 80s and 90s wasn't a patent dispute either. It was a dispute over copyright. Apple alleged Windows copied Mac OS's "look and feel". Apple lost in court, battled on for a while and then settled it entirely in 1997 when Jobs came back. Microsoft agreed to buy shares in Apple and continue developing Office in exchange for stopping the dispute and making IE the default browser on the Mac instead of Netscape.

Presumably Jobs already knew, like most people, that the old Mac OS UI was dead anyway and so was the old Windows UI. Move on.

 

[silentnite]

Bill Gates must be happy the target is now off Microsoft's back.

 

[Apple OC]

Uh, you missed a few words, had to fix it.

Do you ever post anything useful? ... all you seem to do is troll and critic people ... Oh, and send people PM Spam ... thanks for the spam dan

 

[JAT]

Taking your example of GUI design together with the 3 images that were posted before ; like I said:
* lining up a load of application icons in a grid layout isn't new.
* having applications on a quick launch bar also isn't new.
* having the above on ONE screen isn't new.

So, what are Apple going to sue for? It has been done previously ( for example, on the SE800/9xx ). Of course, Apple could try suing for patent infrigment, but I don't it would get very far.

Exactly, patent infringement. Apple is constantly suing and being sued for this, the point of the article. I don't understand some people's reticence to accept that this is how big business works. Runs this world, too.

The point is, you said Google was simply copying others when it made products. You can't do that if there are patents involved, without licensing.