From: milanj@sematech.org (Jon Milan)
Subject: Re: August 1992 CACTUS Newsletter
Organization: SEMATECH Manufacturing Systems Development
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 16:03:59 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.004937.23258@chinacat.unicom.com> chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>*** Commentary - USL v. BSDI ***
>
>    [Opinions are those of the author.  Responses are welcomed.
>We assume such responses are submitted for publication and
>reserve the right to edit submissions.]
>

    Ditto -- these opinions are mine, not planted in my brain by any
    organization!  ...  at least not to my knowledge  :-> 

[more stuff omitted]

>    If UNIX System Laboratories (USL, the owners of UNIX) has its
>way, BSD/386 will not see the light of day.  USL has brought suit
>against BSDI claiming misappropriation of the UNIX trademark and
>USL intellectual property.  On the first count, USL is right.
>For a time BSDI's main phone number was 1-800-ITS-UNIX.  That has
>ceased and I leave it to the courts to decide whether any
>punishment is due.  On the second count, USL claims,
>``Substantial portions of BSDI's BSD/386 operating system are
>[derived from] USL's proprietary software products.''  USL
>provides no substantiation to this claim, but seeks relief for
>these unspecified crimes anyway.
>
>    USL has every right and responsibility to protect and defend
>their proprietary interests.  However, their methods are
>deplorable.  If BSDI has indeed stolen intellectual property,
>then USL should be able to point to a specific theft.  In the
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

There is a concept, regarding the legal ownership of "intellectual
property," I believe is called "intellectual corruption."  If any of
the developers in BSDI have ever seen _any_ USL source code, they may
be considered "corrupted" by USL's intellectual property, and will have
a _tough_ time proving they have not included any of it in their software.

Remember this is not a "copyright infrigement" case.  We're not talking source
code ownership here.

I believe all USL will need to bring suit is evidence of intellectual
property infringement, and it'll be BSDI's business to prove they've never
seen any UNIX code.

If you've read "Accidental Empires" (William Cringely), [I'll leave
commentary on this book for some other time], you'll recall that author points
out the IBM BIOS intellectual property issues that were only gotten around
by finding smart developers who had _never_ seen IBM's publication
of the BIOS code, but could recreate it from scratch, on their own.

>absence of these specifics, one can only wonder if the sole
>purpose of this suit is to harass and decimate a small company
>that could potentially provide real and substantitive competition
>to the monopoly position USL enjoys with UNIX.
>

I doubt this is the "sole purpose" of the suit -- the intellectual property
issues surrouding software ownership are still quite murky.  There are few
guidelines in place to set the boundaries around intellectual property issues.
Software companies are obliged to test these boundaries using the courts.  But
to think USL doesn't want to gain from this would be foolish.
-- 
Jon Milan         jon_milan@sematech.org      |
SEMATECH Manufacturing Systems Development    |
"is was as was was when was was as is" (pmk)  |
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