Assignment (Doc) | Case Study About Business Law

Running head: CASE STUDY ABOUT BUSINESS LAW 1
Case Study about Business Law
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CASE STUDY ABOUT BUSINESS LAW 2
Case Study about Business Law: Chapter 7
Copyrights are established to protect the creations of music, arts and literature, as long as
the works in question are tangible. The rights in question are granted and managed by the
Copyright office in America (Libson & Parchomovsky, 2019). Trademarks refer to a logo,
symbol, word, design or phrase which companies use to represent its brand (Altman, 2018). One
of the legal requirements is that trademarks should be unique to avoid unfair competition in the
market. In most cases, lawsuits arise from copyright infringement, inaccurate details, plagiarism
and details surrounding the true event (Northover, 2016). In such cases, copyright infringement
is one of the concerns which require legal redress. This paper presents a case study on Apple vs.
Microsoft copyright infringement.
What the case is about
The Apple vs. Microsoft case is about copyright infringement which is covered under the
business law area. The battle between Apple and Microsoft revolves around the notion about the
major player who developed the graphical user interface (GUI). The firm in control of the
product of the key OS will have the capacity to fix the criteria for the software application.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Apple focused its efforts towards trying to prevent the provider
of the Windows OS from being the chief operating system. It appeared that despite Microsoft
assisted in the development of Macintosh, Jean-Louis Gassee did not permit the company to
utilize the software. As a result, Bill Gates focused on including additional featured to the
Macintosh’s early prototypes. Subsequently, Gassee saw the final software and was enraged.
However, since he did not require a lawsuit, he agreed to provide a license for the Mac’s visual
displays. However, the version 2.0 of the Windows operating system seemed to be alike. In this

CASE STUDY ABOUT BUSINESS LAW 3
case, Gassee considered it to go against the agreement since he allowed the software to be
utilized for the 1.0 version rather than the latter versions. Due to this, Apple reported a copyright
violation case against Microsoft in 1988 (Jobson, Nercessian & Ludmer, 2018).
Legal Issue
The legal issue presented in the circumstance of Apple vs. Microsoft was that of
copyright infringement. In this case, Apple included 189 displays which it argued that it violated
its copyright (Jobson, Nercessian & Ludmer, 2018).
The Chosen Case with question for Analysis
The chosen case for analysis is Apple vs. Microsoft.
Questions and Answers Related to the Case
Did Microsoft’s actions result to copyright infringement?
Despite the fact that Apple provided authorization to the enable Microsoft to use its
software at a start, it is evident that the Microsoft violated the deal after utilizing the software for
its Windows 2.0 version, therefore, resulting to a copyright infringement case. According to
Quintais and Poort (2019), one always require an authorization (normally provided in the form of
a license) before utilizing a protected work. Before providing the license the terms of agreement
should be clear to avoid potential concerns involving the copyright infringement issues such as in
the case of Apple vs. Microsoft.
How did the Merger Doctrine benefit Microsoft in this Case?