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Old 04-27-2012, 08:55 AM   #63
5thWiggle
Benevolent Evil Lord
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Evil Canada (We all have goatees!)
Device: Galaxy Note 8.0, Galaxy Note, iPad Mini, PocketEdge(retired)
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
My recollection is Compaq did it first.
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/d...able-Computer/
Phoenix was the first to *license* an IBM-compatible BIOS to all comers.
You're correct, I forgot Compaq developed it's own reverse engineered bios but didn't license it.
However, considering that the names of Apple programmers were found in the Franklin bios, I think it's safe to assume that Franklin didn't reverse engineer the entire thing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
IBM, on the other hand, never sued over trade dress or trivialities they *knew* they would lose, just to bleed the smaller company out of the market.
Few companies are that petty.
(Shrug)

Not all lawsuits are unwarranted, but suing for every conceivable reason does lead to a fair amount of unwarranted and losing suits.
Since I do not have a direct telepathic link to the upper management at Apple, I'm not going to comment on the notion that they pettily attempt to bleed out smaller companies (only a major artery slash would bleed out Samsung, Google, Microsoft et al). I do, however, have no problem with any company protecting trademarks and trade dress, nor do I consider them trivial. They are what sets your company apart from the others in the mind of consumers. While it's true most computer and electronic companies don't defend trade dress as rigorously as does Apple, a quick Google search on trademark and trade dress litigation shows that they are not the only company that does defend it. Your choice whether to like it or not.
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