With uncertainty of this order in the air, software programmers, like entertainers, just won't dare perform anymore. I'm inclined to think this argument is specious and that the courts were right to rule against imitators. Deliberate knockoffs are easy enough to recognize. Some interfaces, like the C prompt in the Microsoft Disk Operating System, are horribly opaque and inscrutable. Some, like the Lotus spreadsheet, are wonderfully transparent and intuitive.
Great innovation is just what intellectual property rights are supposed to protect.
With that said, I think Lotus has made one big mistake. Trustbusters, along with quite a few disgruntled customers, said IBM was monopolizing the computer market by first addicting its customers to particular hardware standards and then beating off competitors with patents. Today, though it isn't being hectored by antitrust lawyers anymore, IBM is falling all over itself to disown its proprietary past and tout the common standards and compatibility it shares with everyone else. On the software side of things, IBM has suddenly become a passionate believer in open systems, or at least in an open version of Unix, the sophisticated operating system originally developed by Bell Labs. As soon as IBM learned the lesson, Apple forgot it, and foolishly tried to seal up its second-generation machines.