[SwellJoe]

"Look and feel" has been tested in court and found not to be something you can protect via IP, a couple of decades ago, and on a few occasions since. Just as a steering wheel is not something car makers could lay exclusive claim to, a touchscreen UI or a windows and mouse UI are not ideas that can be protected via patents; though, currently specific implementations could be (but, I'm opposed to that).

All of your arguments in this comment are about look and feel, and not about patentable technology.

So, you believe current patent law is not broad enough and should cover even more? I don't see how you could defend such a position, if you're a software developer...if you write any non-trivial software, you're already violating dozens, if not hundreds, of patents. How could you possibly believe adding more scope to software patents could be a positive force for good in the world?