Apple Fails Due Diligence in Trade Secret Case 236
Brett writes "Despite claims to the contrary, it now appears that Apple didn't do any serious investigation inside the
company before they sued AppleInsider and the PowerPage. This is quite a bit of a problem because Californian law and First Amendment precedent requires Apple check up on itself
before threatening journalists. From the article, "It appears that Apple has adopted a shoot-first, ask questions later approach to dealing with rumors sites. The company took no
depositions, required no oaths from its employees, and failed to subpoena anyone related to the company or the development of the device in question.""
Case Summary from EFF (Score:5, Informative)
Here [eff.org] is a comprehensive summary of the case at EFF's site. The coverage has obvious bias, but informative nonetheless.
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple had given Xerox shares in exchange for just a demo of what they had achieved at PARC.
Microsoft did not give Apple or Xerox anything.
Re:Summary misleading? (Score:5, Informative)
From the reg article:
Seriously - I really don't understand why the Apple Fans are defending Apple on this one. Apple crossed the line of reasonableness here, defending them means you've crossed the line from fan to shill.
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:5, Informative)
So what? Do you really believe that Apple had the right to "copyright" items like overlapping windows?
Microsoft (filth tho they are) were IMO able to reimplement Apples GUI if they so chose.
Or do you believe that Apple should not be able to use items like tabbed dialogue boxes? (they appeared in windows first)
Apple had given Xerox shares in exchange for just a demo of what they had achieved at PARC.
Reference please. I see many Apple shills pulling this out, but it seems to be contradicted by Xerox sueing Apple. [utexas.edu]
Choice quote from the article:
Microsoft did not give Apple or Xerox anything.
so what?
I don't believe they should have - they didn't steal Apple's copyrighted code did they?
Apple are a great company - they make nice hardware, a reasonable Unix like system to run on it and are innovative in many ways.
But it doesn't mean we have to defend them when they're clearly wrong.
Re:That is just the opinion of the opposing lawyer (Score:3, Informative)
The story is that the judge unsealed the documents, and those documents show that Apple didn't fulfil its obligations to investigate internally FIRST. Besides, this is the EFF, they usually pick their causes well. I trust their legal actions much more than any corporations, because they're not out just to make money, they're here to protect people's rights.
I wonder if that's grounds for a malicious prosecutions lawsuit. It would serve them right. Those laws exist to protect the rights of the people, and Apple just ignored them.
Apple does make some very good products, but that's no excuse to trample people's rights. All corporations have the ability to be evil, by their nature. They really need to be held in check when that comes out. Even Google with its "do no evil" slogan has the potential.
MacWord released in 1985 (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel [wikipedia.org]
I should know as I extensively used them in my first love affair with the Mac platform in undergraduate school 1984-1989.
B
Re:Wait...are you serious? (Score:2, Informative)
Apple gave Microsoft the development kit for development of Microsoft Excel [wikipedia.org], which was first launched on the Mac in 1985 and Word the same year. At that time, Microsoft was DOS only.
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:4, Informative)
Or do you believe that Apple should not be able to use items like tabbed dialogue boxes? (they appeared in windows first)
I remember seeing them in OS/2 before Windows 95 came out.
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:5, Informative)
The very link you provided contains the following statement: "Mr. Jobs had been permitted to visit the Xerox laboratory in return for allowing Xerox to invest in one of Apple's last private financing offerings." More links. [google.com]
they didn't steal Apple's copyrighted code did they?For the GUI, no. For Quicktime (AVI), tes [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Queue Apple Apologists in 3... 2... (Score:3, Informative)
And another reference [mac.com]:
Re:Wait...are you serious? (Score:3, Informative)
Excel [wikipedia.org], while not Microsoft's first spreadsheet, originated on the Mac in '85. Windows didn't get their share until '87.
Anm
(PS- nice slashdot id, neighbor)
Re:Just Curious... (Score:2, Informative)
You're welcome.
Apple went to the court and asked the judge: "Please make these journalists tell who leaked our trade secrets". The journalists got some lawyers how are telling the judge: "No, don't make them tell!". Apple's lawyers and the journalists' lawyers now send papers to the court with their reasons why the journalists should have to tell the names or why the shouldn't.
In one of these papers Apple explains what they have done to find out themselves where the leak is. That paper was "sealed" so that nobody can read it except the judge and the lawyers, apparently because it itself contains trade secrets. The other side managed to "unseal" the paper, so that everyone can read it except for the trade secret bits. All that is absolutely normal business.
The unusual bit now is that the EFF, which pays the lawyers, goes and publishes the contents of that paper - that is a strategy that you would usually expect from the likes of SCO. They also give an interpretation of the contents of the paper - that Apple hasn't done enough to find the leak themselves, therefore the journalists should not be made to tell their sources.
So what we have is a paper; we can consider the contents of the paper as fact (because lying to the court would be a very very bad idea), and we know how the EFF wants the judge and the world to interpret the contents of the paper. You can assume that Apple's lawyers have a very different opinion, but Apple apparently wants to handle their court cases in the courts, and not in the press, unlike the EFF. So while some bits of the article are based on fact, the headline and the conclusion that they want you to draw is pure spin by one of the two competing sides.
What the article presents as its headline: "Apple Fails Due Diligence", is exactly what the judge has to decide. No such decision has been made. This is the same situation as if a man accused of theft went to court, the defense lawyer says "my client is not guilty", and then you write an article with the headline "Client not guilty of theft!", stating his innocence as fact when all you have is what the lawyer said.
Re:That's what makes Apple different from Microsof (Score:3, Informative)
Then why not find out? Google it:
Linus Clarifies the Linux Trademark [kerneltrap.org]
Linus went on to underscore the fact that policing trademarks is not a method of making money, quite the opposite due to Lawyer fees, "not only do I not get a cent of the trademark money, but even LMI (who actually administers the mark) has so far historically always lost money on it."
The Linux Mark Institute
Re:Subject to the plaintiff's action (Score:3, Informative)
If you obtained trade secrets under an NDA, you do NOT have the right to tell those to a journalist at all. If a company can prove that it has ensured that anyone who had access to the information was bound not to share it, that's pretty good evidence the journalist did not have a legitimate source. Either it was "stolen" by someone, or someone breached their contract. In that case, the journalist may have broken the law by inducing the leak. It seems reasonable to investigate, and part of that investigation would be asking the journalist where he got the information.