Not patents, but a federal appeals court affirmed a lower court decision that HP and Microsoft did not infringe on key software copyrights of Apple Computer. The ruling could close the six-year intellectual property case, one of the most closely watched in Silicon Valley. A three-judge panel of the US Ninth District Court of Appeals issued the ruling yesterday. At this time, Apple is deciding how to respond, possibly with an appeal to the US Supreme Court. Given Microsoft's successes in Washington, and Apple's collaboration with HP (& IBM) on the next generation of operating systems look-and-feel (amongst other things going on at Taligent), why bother appealing? Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service (for subscription info, send 'help' to patents@world.std.com) (for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to patents@world.std.com)