Apple Computer sues Daewoo

Apple Computer Inc. said it has filed a suit against Future Power, Daewoo Group and Daewoo

Telecom, alleging that a new PC launched by Future Power has copied the industrial design

of Apple's consumer iMac.






The complaint, filed in US district court for the northern district of California in San
Jose, seeks to halt Future Power and Daewoo from distributing computers that illegally

copy Apple's designs and asks for actual and punitive damages.






Steve Jobs, Interim Chief Executive made a statement that they have invested a lot of
money and effort to create and market the award-winning designs, and that they intend to

vigorously protect them under the law.






Future Power, a joint venture company backed by Korea-based Daewoo Telecom, a subsidiary
of the Daewoo Group, introduced an all-in-one, sleek integrated PC called the E-Power that

comes Internet-ready in five bright colors at the PC Expo trade show in New York for $799.






Press reports from PC Expo said that the E-Power system exhibited at the Future Power
booth looked almost identical to Apple's iMac. A picture of the E-Power on

futurepowerusa.com, showed a "sapphire" colored all-in-one PC, with a

translucent plastic design. E-Power, is based on an Intel Corp. processor running at a

speed of 400 Megahertz, which runs Microsoft Corp's Windows and has a built-in floppy

drive.






In the past, Apple has sued over intellectual property and software, but this lawsuit is
an unusual one in the PC industry, because it is over the design of a PC.






E-Machines Inc, another low-cost PC maker, has plans to introduce an iMac clone, but
running Intel-Microsoft Architecture.