We are now waiting to see if the Supreme Court will hear the case. If it does, the League for Programming Freedom will again submit a brief. The battle is not over. Just this summer a company that produced a simulator for a CDC computer was shut down by a copyright lawsuit by CDC, which charged that the simulator infringed the copyright on the manuals for the computer. Imagine if each car manufacturer had to design a different way to start, stop, and steer a car.
Large companies have an unfair advantage wherever lawsuits become commonplace.
Since they can afford to sue, they can intimidate smaller developers with threats even when they don't really have a case. Interface improvements will come slower, since incremental evolution through creative partial imitation will no longer occur. Open Computing magazine reported a Microsoft vice president as threatening to sue people who imitate the interface of Windows. Users invest a great deal of time and money in learning to use computer interfaces. Far more, in fact, than software developers invest in developing and even implementing the interfaces.