[Karunamon]

Great. It's still a copy. Whether they paid for access to it or not is irrelevant - it's still a copy of someone else's innovation.

[JasonFruit]

I doubt a patent attorney would consider that irrelevant, and it's not irrelevant when you're discussing corporate conduct.

[Karunamon]

I don't mean legally, I meant in the "Apple is soooooo innovative" sense.

[mkr-hn]

It seems like most Apple acolytes have conceded that point.

[javajosh]

Emphasis can be a powerful thing. If you see an array of amazing things (as I'm sure Jobs & Co did at PARC), and then you select a key item to emphasize and popularize, then you have, in fact, contributed value. One could say that this was Steve Jobs' first act of 'technology curation' - an act which has (successfully) been commoditized and monetized via the App Store.