A serious attempt is being made to legally clone the Apple Macintosh by Cupertino, California-based Nutek Computers Inc. The company is reverse engineering a Macintosh-compatible computer using publicly available technical specifications. Apple has sought to defend its personal computers from cloning by establishing a variety of patents and copyrights – for example, Apple has copyrighted the Macintosh operating system and the screen display. According to the New York Times, Nuteck president Ben Chou thinks he can get round this defence because Nuteck has developed its own chip set and a compatible operating system by using public specifications. Nuteck’s most ingenious innovation, however, is to license Motif software from the Open Software Foundation and adapt it for the Macintosh in order to get round patents protecting the Apple Macintosh’s distinctive screen display. Nuteck does not plan to sell the machines itself but will sell the chip sets, operating systems and screen display to other computer companies. However, the chip sets won’t be ready until year end, so clones won’t appear till 1992 and Apple Corp will probably sue for infringement of copyright.
