[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Svelte: Actually, Xerox pretty much handed the technology to Apple. There was a cheapo stock deal that Apple offered in exchange, but Xerox had NO interest in developing/marketing/selling the Alto.
Philosophically speaking, you could probably call it a “steal” because, in that sense, it was.[/quote]
Oddly, Xerox turned around and sued Apple!
Xerox…sued Apple alleging that Mac’s GUI was heavily based on Xerox’s. The district court dismissed Xerox’s claims without addressing whether Apple’s GUI infringed Xerox’s, since the latter licensed it to the former back in 1979 for pre-IPO stock.
Also, Apple sued Microsoft and lost:
Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994) was a copyright infringement lawsuit in which Apple Computer, Inc. sought to prevent Microsoft Corporation and Hewlett-Packard from using visual graphical user interface (GUI) elements that were similar to those in Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh operating systems. The court ruled that, “Apple cannot get patent- protection for the idea of a graphical user interface, or the idea of a desktop metaphor [under copyright law]…”
