Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal

“I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me,
too.

“In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called
Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the
graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s
IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and
copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it,
“I’ll just sue you.”

“My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your
last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence
– do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation
product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to
found and which Sun acquired in 1996.”

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