Gentlemen, start your engines-- we can only assume that the iMac cloners are preparing to imitate with reckless abandon. Faithful viewer SpaceTrucker was the first to tell us about the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling that protects knockoff products. Apparently this new ruling declares that copying the "distinctive look" of a product doesn't violate U.S. trademark laws. Hear that? That's the sound of millions of brightly-colored, translucent all-in-one computers all flooding the market at the same time...

There's more about the Supreme Court's landmark decision in an American Lawyer Media article. Apparently the case in question involved Wal-Mart ripping off the clothing designs of some company called Samara Brothers. The court ruled that "product design is like color and therefore cannot be protected." You just have to assume that Daewoo and eMachines are kicking themselves right now; if they'd have just held out a bit longer before settling Apple's copycat lawsuits, they'd have a lot more leverage to sell their iMacalikes. Meanwhile, Future Power's probably dancing a jig, crafting a smug press release, and firing up the production lines-- when the company's lawyers waltz into court against Apple next month, it sounds like they're going to have a Supreme Court decision on their side.

Now, we're not lawyers, but we've seen one on TV. (Oh, wait, hold on-- one of us is a lawyer, and one that specializes in intellectual property law, at that. Too bad she's not writing this, hmmm?) From a layperson's perspective, we'd swear we've heard in the past that clothing designs are expressly not protected under law, which is why cheap knockoffs of designer label clothing are everywhere-- so why did the Wal-Mart case get all the way to the Supreme Court? Whatever. Apple's one saving grace may be that the court did allow for product design protection in the case that it acquires a "secondary meaning" that "links it uniquely to the manufacturer." In other words, if "the design-- such as a Coke bottle-- has become identified with a single manufacturer," then that design is protected by law. Now all Apple's lawyers have to do is prove that the iMac's distinctive look fulfills that criterion. Can they pull it off? Hey, they've been on a winning streak recently, so we wouldn't bet against them. Anyone got the Vegas odds?