Read on Twitter
I was in class this afternoon, so I am catching up on events. I confess that my mind is freshly blown each time I see a tweet like this. It shows that I update pretty slowly I guess. https://twitter.com/jacknicas/status/1384966726564073475
We have a pretty elaborate set of rules that determine when copying is allowed or not and when market entry is allowed or not. Lots of copying is good, so said the Sup Ct most recently in Google v. Oracle.
Copying that infringes patents is actionable, and if Apple is violating Tile's patents, I hope that Tile goes after them.
But ideas, generally, are not patentable or copyrightable. I have been writing over the last month about two hugely important ideas, the GUI and RISC. Things that define the world that we live in today and that sit largely outside of property.
Apple lost its look-and-feel copyright case against Microsoft and while IBM claimed RISC patents, I don't have the sense that those blocked entry by Sun, MIPS, Intel or eventually ARM.
Antitrust generally favors entry. And we don't run a dibs system--I got here first, I call dibs on this field or this product area--but instead want competition and have lots of products that do essentially the same thing (Coke, Pepsi; McD's, Burger King etc).
Then the market decides which product wins. There are tricky issues about differential access to the iOS platform and those are worth discussing and I should go read testimony next, but the idea that "they do essentially the same thing" doesn't, I don't think, do any work here.
