I’m not familiar with U.S. law but didn’t Xerox ‘own’ the patent(s) to GUI technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple both ‘appropriated’ and/or ‘misapproriated’, depending on your point-of-view, this exact technology! Does commercial-use, read profit, subsume legal rights eventually in the U.S. and I suppose elsewhere in the capitalist world? Given what has happened in the past 45 yrs. or so, and the almost equal value of Microsoft and Apple(determined by the stock exchange), has the marketplace prevailed? Have we the consumer benefited the most or more accurately the 2 richest high-tech, transnational corporations?
Happy computing - and best wishes for a prosperous New Year for all. Murray ☺