Comparing the Views of Lawyers and User Interface Designers on the Software Copyright Look and Feel Lawsuits
Pamela Samuelson, Robert J. Glushko · bepress Legal Repository · 1989
This article reports the results of a survey of the user interface field's perspectives on copyright protection of computer software, conducted at the sixth Association of the Computing Machinery Conference on Computer-Human Interaction.The survey focuses specifically on the effects of protection of "look andfeel " of user interfaces.The mst significantfinding is that 79percent of respondents with an opinion opposed "look and feel "protection.These and other results are then compared with the views of intellectual property scholars expressed in the consensus statement reported at the outset of this issue.The article concludes that the views of the user interface design community provide strong support for the conclusions drawn in the consensus statement.It is rare for those with a deep grounding in intellectual property law to learn what those with a deep grounding in a field governed by this law think about the extent of intellectual property protection that would promote innova-