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The Xerox vs Apple suit wasn't dismissed on merit. It was dismissed solely on a technicality: The judge indicated that Xerox had waited too long to file its claim. So let's not suggest that Xerox didn't have a valid claim. It did. Apple ripped off its ideas. You can dress that up any way you like, but it's fact.

That is NOT what contemporaneous reports (see the above posts) in the main stream press said. That would be an issue if the case had been brought before the Copyright Office... The New York Times:

Judge Walker dismissed two counts relating to Xerox's efforts to get Apple's copyright declared invalid, . . . agreeing with Apple

The judge's hrowing out Xerox's copyright infringement suit - and barring it from further litigation - left Apple's Mac GUI copyrights in place. I suspect that Xerox would have a difficult time demostrating an infringment in light of the $1 million dollars in pre-IPO Preferred Stock Apple gave them in exchange for access. In any case, Xerox, although they claimed they were going to appeal, did not and let the matter drop.

HEADLINE: Most of Xerox's Suit Against Apple Barred BYLINE: By ANDREW POLLACK, Special to The New York Times DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO, March 23

BODY: A Federal judge today dismissed almost all the closely watched copyright lawsuit filed by the Xerox Corporation against Apple Computer Inc.

In what appears to be a sweeping victory for Apple,Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the Federal District Court in San Francisco threw out five of the six counts in Xerox's lawsuit, saying, in essence, that Xerox's complaints were inappropriate for a variety of legal reasons.

Xerox sued Apple in December, seeking more than $150 million in damages.It asserted that the screen display of Apple's Macintosh computer unlawfully used copyrighted technology that Xerox had developed and incorporated in a computer called the Star, which was introduced in 1981, three years before the Macintosh.

''We welcome the ruling in every way,'' said a jubilant Jack E. Brown of Brown & Bain, the law firm representing Apple, which had filed a motion to have the case dismissed. Even if Xerox prevails on the one count it can still pursue, it cannot win much because the judge threw out all the counts seeking damages, attorneys involved in the case said.

A Xerox spokesman said the company planned to appeal. ''The ruling doesnot mean Apple hasn't taken substantial portions of the Star and claimed them as their own,'' a statement issued by Xerox said. ''The court merely held, we believe erroneously, that Xerox does not have standing to present facts in support of our contention.''

The Xerox lawsuit is one of many copyright suits that are splitting the computer software industry. A major issue is the right to the screen displays known as graphical user interfaces - a dashboard of sorts by which a user controls the computer.

A key appeal of the Macintosh is its ease of use, thanks in part toa display that allows users to perform tasks by pointing at symbols onthe screen and to divide the screen into separate ''windows,'' each containing a different document or program. Now, virtually all computer companiesare adopting similar screen displays. No one disputes that many of the ideas behind such interfaces were born at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970's, although the Star was not a marketing success. But the question of how similar one interface has to be to another to constitute copyright infringement remains unanswered.

Apple won this on a technicality. Why can't you accept this simple fact? Or are you so 'embedded' in Apple's rear end that you can't admit it?!?