I googled the Xerox v Apple case, and in the first paragraph of section I ("ALLEGATIONS OF XEROX' COMPLAINT"), it says:
> On June 9, 1981, Xerox granted Apple a license pursuant to which Apple agreed to "participate in a project with the Learning Research Group at PARC/Xerox for the purpose of implementing the Smalltalk-80 language and system on a hardware system to be developed by [Apple]."
So clearly even Xerox admitted they licensed some of their work to Apple.
Hold on - that doesn't seem to say what people want to think it's saying, does it? That's a license to use Smalltalk-80 in products. It isn't a license to use the Xerox Parc system or look and feel at all. I think the point remains: if there had been software patents at the time of the original litigation, Xerox would have won. Am I missing something?
> On June 9, 1981, Xerox granted Apple a license pursuant to which Apple agreed to "participate in a project with the Learning Research Group at PARC/Xerox for the purpose of implementing the Smalltalk-80 language and system on a hardware system to be developed by [Apple]."
So clearly even Xerox admitted they licensed some of their work to Apple.
[1]: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3538913398421433...