I don't think any article on the issue of "look and feel" is complete without coverage of the two most significant precedents (both for what they say and what they don't say about it), Apple Computer v. Microsoft and Lotus v. Borland.
Lotus said (broadly) that public interfaces like menus weren't copyrightable in and of themselves, but that the implementation of those menus may be copyrightable. Additionally, the non-copyrightable menus may contain individual elements that could be subject to copyright.
In this particular case, I think it's just something that 37signals' lawyers had them put in to give them future leverage in negotiation if someone does release something major that significantly uses their "look and feel" - in my experience the precedents aren't nearly clear enough to make a look and feel suit an open-and-closed cased.
As ever, you should consult a local IP lawyer if this really matters to you, and not listen to what a bunch of people on the internet have to say.
Yeah, it's a weird blog post -- I don't know whether the author is a lawyer, but this isn't how most lawyers would go about writing a blog post about whether "look and feel" is copyrighted. The guy treats the Copyright Office web site as gospel, never mentions key Supreme Court cases, and only barely looks at the statutes. Yet, his ultimate conclusion is pretty much correct.
But, this guy has given me courage. If programmers are comfortable writing about law, maybe this lawyer should start writing about programming.
Lotus said (broadly) that public interfaces like menus weren't copyrightable in and of themselves, but that the implementation of those menus may be copyrightable. Additionally, the non-copyrightable menus may contain individual elements that could be subject to copyright.
In this particular case, I think it's just something that 37signals' lawyers had them put in to give them future leverage in negotiation if someone does release something major that significantly uses their "look and feel" - in my experience the precedents aren't nearly clear enough to make a look and feel suit an open-and-closed cased.
As ever, you should consult a local IP lawyer if this really matters to you, and not listen to what a bunch of people on the internet have to say.