That’s not true at all — at least if you are referring to user interface copyright. Apple was the first company I remember asserting this right, only a minority of people expected them to win the suit, and they lost it. The key reason for this is the law: which is very clear that copyright, while it applies to documents, does not apply to general expressions of UI design principles.

It is true that copyright was widely asserted — to protect literal code and the printed documentation that accompanied it. For “intellectual property” protection of software, companies used the only worthwhile protection that has ever existed: trade secret protection.

Again, when you say duplicate I get the feeling you’re talking about copyright. The term imitate may be more applicable.

But if you asked how much money Xerox made from overlapping windows before Apple copied them you’d come to a very different conclusion.

Genuine pioneering work is rare, so if you want to argue that it doesn’t need protection can you at least use some legitimate examples?

That’s all I’m asking.

It’s also amusing that you continue to stress the distinction between “software patents” and (presumbly) real ones, but the examples you’re giving are actually hardware-dependent examples of devices, processes, and machines consistent with historical examples of patentable inventions.

The GUI isn’t something that can be done strictly in software, you see.

I appreciate the history lesson, but I’m not sure how it contradicts my post. I didn’t say Apple invented anything. I just said that it took Microsoft 6-11 years to duplicate what Apple built, thereby giving Apple a wide window of opportunity in which to turn a profit. Which features are original to Apple and which were copied from Xerox is really beside the point. The point is that innovators have ample opportunity to profit from their inventions without the aid of software patents.

The truth is that both Apple and Microsoft stole overlapping windows from Xerox, who had used it on a variety of experimental workstations such as the Alto before productizing it on the Star and the 1100. There was no question of Apple patenting this invention because it was Xerox’s from the beginning. Steve jobs was inspired to build the Mac by seeing a demo at Xerox PARC.

Early versions of MS Windows had tiled windows because they were afraid of impinging on Xerox’s patents for overlapping windows, but they worked out some kind of deal as I recall.

Both Apple and Microsoft hired people from Xerox to do their windowing: MS got Charles Simonyi, the architect of Word and later of Windows, and Apple got Larry Tessler.

I know you love your Apples as much as you love your Totally, Like, Free Software, but pushing the myth that Apple invented the overlapping windows/bit map display/mouse UI makes you look, well, foolish.

I’d like to see the patents Apple has filed for this silly little phone. Do they think they invented the touch screen, the display of icons on touch screen, or the use of a touch screen to mimic a keyboard? It wouldn’t surprise me if they did, but Apple’s innovations are more likely limited to methods of back-dating stock options.

*is formal protection preferable to non-formal protection (such as community enforcement)? *is investment necessary for innovation?

All of the reasons you laid out above I addressed above, but again you dodged the issues.

If “lead time is an advantage that can be nearly as valuable as patents,” isn’t it possible that patents aren’t needed at all?

No.

You’re begging the question. The whole issue is whether “formal protection” is “necessary” for businesses to recoup their investments. I say it’s not, for reasons I’ve laid out in great detail in previous posts. If “lead time is an advantage that can be nearly as valuable as patents,” isn’t it possible that patents aren’t needed at all?

Lead time is an advantage that can be nearly as valuable as patents (actually, with the USPTO these days, lead time and trade secrecy may be more important than ever). Yet, it does not provide the same kind of formal protection necessary to fend off misappropriation of investment. Nor does lead time facilitate disclosure and the open model of innovation as much as patents through licensing.

At least with respect to software, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Whats up with this Tim: Why would Apple bother to develop something like Multitouch without the benefit of patent protection? Quite obviously, it’s because if the product is as good as Uncle Steve’s presentation made it look, Apple is going to make a ton of money on it.

What does this mean?! Are you saying that inventors who create good products don’t need to patent? You’re conflating incentives and market viability.

Also, you continue to have a weird notion of copying and derivative works under patent doctrine. Nobody has to copy Apple’s work for its patents to give it the exclusivity conducive to commercializing its invention. Your linquistics get in your way…

Finally, your point about the history of the software industry is weird. Luis calls it out, that firms worked under the assumption that copyrights would be adequate, but soon began leveraging patents as complements and substitutes for copyrights- even before software patents were per se legal. Check out some articles by Stuart Graham at GA Tech and Josh Lerner of Harvard, who have written on this (I’m not name dropping, if citing can be considered that:) but just want to point you to a resource).