And the lawsuit is all about copying the aesthetics, not the functional aspects. In UIs, usability is more about the aesthetics, since it is all about the best way of presenting the underlying functionality, not the functionality itself. I cannot think of a valid reason why a product should be able to free-ride on the popularity of its competitor. Just because a "market is lopsided" does not seem like it.
What I was trying to say is that maybe Corel could argue that they can't be infringing a design patent for copying what MS calls aesthetic, when it's actually functional. In other words, they would say they were copying necessary functional aspects for user interoperability, so those aspects cannot be claimed to be aesthetic and covered by a design patent.
Because OS companies like Microsoft and Apple set standards for how applications built for their OS should look-and-feel, and tell developers to make them consistent?
