[Dean's World] Dave Schuler: The return of “ look and feel” ?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Schuler:
The return of “look and feel”?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1169237532.shtml


   Remember the announcement with much fanfare of Apple's new iPhone
   product last week? It hasn't taken long for somebody to come up with a
   [1]skin for the Treo that looks very much like the user interface of
   the iPhone (the developer calls it iPhony and I'm not linking to
   it--google it for yourself). And it's taken even less time for Apple
   to complain about it and issue letters to the developer threatening
   suit for copyright infringement.

   Shades of [2]Lotus v. Borland. I thought this had been settled long
   ago. In L v. B the First Circuit distinguished between the
   implementation of a user interface and the âlook and feelâ of the
   interface finding the implementation subject to copyright but not in
   effect the user interface itself.

   Maybe they were complaining about the pictures.

   Cross-posted to [3]The Glittering Eye.

References

   1. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.palminfocenter.com%2Fnews%2F9182%2Fiphony-launcher-for-palm-os%2F&ei=shmxReDoBYf8oQKet-XjDw&usg=__7hXipGSZzFNOC4An4InVhN9z7iw=&sig2=_-PTcv3CRY7bGDTlFAstGg
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland
   3. http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=2614