Who owns the elements of the interface?

Thomas J McGrath III 3mcgrath at adelphia.net
Wed Nov 5 21:56:54 EST 2003


I for one used to work for Xerox many years ago and they indeed did 
invent some of the early GUI aspects, but the world was different back 
then. They did not realize what it was they had done. They just wanted 
to make money using the interface in anyway they could. I then went to 
work for Genigraphics and they 'stole' as many interface elements as 
they could. Xerox did not mind except for what we were doing with them 
and not that we had them.
Then Apple came along and made the GUI make sense and turned it into an 
'easy to use for the user' interface. Apple took it the furthest. For 
years Microsoft would wait to see what Apple was doing and then just 
take it. They all cared about the elements but were more concerned 
about what was being done with the elements and not that the elements 
were being used.
Legally ""who knows"" but back in the day they really didn't care.

On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 04:22 PM, jbv wrote:
>>
>> Who owns the elements of the interface?
>>
>> buttons, menus, hypertext, visual effects
>> transitions, scroll fields, checkboxes, etc...
> I remember something about the trial in "look and
> feel" between Apple and Micro$oft in the 80's
> when Windows was released : it seems that Rank
> Xerox had been stated as the 1st inventor of all
> these elements, and that the dispute was pointless...
> But does that mean they are the owner ?
> Or is it in public domain already ?
>
> Or is this remark completly OT ?
>
> JB
>
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Thomas J McGrath III
Advanced Media Group

220 Drake Rd.
Bethel Park, PA 15102
3mcgrath at adelphia.net




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