Up nearly twelve points on Tuesday, up another nine points on Wednesday-- no doubt about it, something's going on with Apple stock. Once the whipping boy of the tech market, AAPL has grown from under $13 a share to over $144 in just over two years. Geez, just look at this chart-- "up 983.14% since 12/22/97." Can you believe there are still people who think Steve Jobs doesn't deserve that Gulfstream jet? Heck, we say it's time to buy him a whole fleet. And a small country to park it on.

Now, after the sudden twelve-point rise on Tuesday, we were willing to write the whole thing off as a fluke. After all, there was no real news that should have sparked such an increase. "Steve Jobs will keynote at WWDC." Big whoop. "Palm has lots of ex-Apple executives." Bestill our palpitating hearts. No, we figured that Apple just got caught up in the overall tech stock increases, but fared better than most due to some unknown external factor-- cosmic rays, most likely. But after the price continued to skyrocket on Wednesday, we figured we just had to be missing something obvious. And apparently we weren't the only ones a bit baffled by AAPL's disproportionate run-up. MacWEEK thinks it "appears to be part of a general upswing in technology stocks," but most other tech stocks didn't fare nearly so well. The Mac Observer reports that the "recent surge comes on the heels of little or no news from Cupertino." Everybody's scratching their heads.

Everyone except the investors, that is. Faithful viewers Adam and Tom Bank both clued us in on what's probably been happening. The other day, all the Apple stockholders received their Annual Report in the mail. While there wasn't any new information in there to fervent Apple watchers, this packet brought a few interesting items to the attention of the less-Apple-addicted investors out there-- namely, the upcoming investors' meeting and the vote to increase the number of shares of AAPL from 320 million to 900 million. That means an imminent stock split, and an imminent stock split usually takes share prices higher. Anyone who tunes in to AtAT on a regular basis knew about that last month, but, much to our continued chagrin, not all Apple investors are AtAT addicts. Anyway, the Annual Report explanation is the likeliest we've yet heard for AAPL's recent success, so we're giving it a thumbs-up. At least, since we haven't noticed anyone getting all stretchy or turning into living orange rock, we'll acknowledge that the cosmic rays theory is a long shot.

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?

Will the government never learn? The latest developments in the "Redmond Justice" case are startling, to say the least, and frankly, we're wondering where the writers are going with this. Faithful viewer Stuart Carlton alerted us to a CNNfn article about the increasing likelihood of an out-of-court settlement; you'll recall that, until now, settlement talks between Microsoft and the government were about as productive as a fish with a typewriter. And the typewriter's got no ribbon. But now a settlement is reportedly "near," and get this-- "the settlement push now focuses on developing restrictions on Microsoft's conduct, rather than restructuring or breaking up" the company.

"Restrictions on Microsoft's conduct"? Oh, puh-lease. Evidently the government's forgotten what happened the last time it issued restrictions on Microsoft's conduct. Does anyone remember the 1995 consent decree? The one in which Microsoft agreed never to use its operating system monopoly as leverage to extend the company's grasp into other markets? So let's get this straight, now; the last time Microsoft got into antitrust hot water with the federal government, the government basically let them off with a "promise you'll never do it again." Then, three years later-- that's scarcely enough time to towel off-- Microsoft's right back in the hot water again. And after a profusely entertaining trial which the government is obviously very likely to win, suddenly the government's talking about a settlement that, once again, may amount to yet another promise from Microsoft to play fair.

All we can say is, if the government accepts a settlement that's little more than the same consent decree with "1995" scratched out and "2000" written above it in ball-point pen, then it's time to sack the "Redmond Justice" writers. Nobody with six functioning brain cells would toss away such a commanding advantage in a lawsuit for a warmed over promise that's already been broken umpteen times. Will somebody please remind the government that the judge has openly laughed at Microsoft's defense in court? The government has no reason to accept a settlement without teeth. Hopefully the writers will remember that.