Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft may be able to invoke the dinosaur defence against Apple Computer’s suit: the US Supreme Court has so far declined to rule in software copyright infringement complaints, and case law is decidedly confused, but the Wall Street Journal notes that in 1986, a San Jose federal court ruled that a line of stuffed dinosaur dolls did not infringe the copyrights of a couple of toymakers because the similarities derived from the fact that both depicted dinosaurs, suggesting the defence that the programs complained about are alike because they are designed to make computers easier to use.
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