There are probaly few of you reading this who are not familiar with Apple’s lawsuits against Daewoo corp. and eMachines (for copying the iMac design). It seems to be that Apple will probably win these lawsuits. After all, the eMachines eOne and FuturePower computers are far too similar to the iMac for it to be legal. However, it seems the Supreme Court is having some thoughts about this sort of issue.
At first glance, eMachines and Wal-Mart have very little in common. But wouldn’t you know it? Wal-Mart is into stealing other people’s ideas, too. This article states that Wal-Mart was sued by a children’s clothing company (Samara Brothers) for trade-dress infringement of their clothing designs. And hey, Samara Brothers won. Over $10,000,000 in damages, in fact.
And then Wal-Mart took the case to the Supreme Court.
It seems that the Supreme Court doesn’t mind it when companies can’t think for themselves. They overturned the 2nd Circuit court’s ruling, leaving Wal-Mart with the ability to jack any ideas it seems fit and to use them for their own purposes. This worries me. A lot.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about Wal-Mart and some children’s clothing company. The reason the ruling was overturned was because the clothing designs were not specific to Samara’s brand, and therefore were open to the world to copy. It’s that concept that annoys the hell out of me. I don’t think this case will have any bearing on Apple’s cases because the iMac and its design are central to the Apple look. Just check out the new jelly-filled website and forthcoming operating system.
But what if the Supreme Court decides that at the time the iMac was released, its look was NOT central to Apple’s brand and that it’s open for copying by anyone? Be prepared to see some ugly-ass computers. Insanely great design is more than just a pretty skin.
