IP Innovation, an intellectual property agency, sued Apple on April 18 over its operating system interface. Amazingly, the patent in question dates back to 1984 via references in a 1991 filing by Xerox, which actually linked to GUI concepts drafted in the 1970s on the company's Alto workstations. More specifically, the lawsuit is for "workspaces provided by an object-based user interface that appear to share windows and other display objects."

The four-page formal complaint alleges that Apple has engaged in "willful and deliberate" infringement of a computer control patent by selling its current Tiger operating system. IP Innovation asked for reparations for perceived damages which "exceed $20 million," according to the suit. It also sought an injunction that would prevent the California-based defendant from infringing on the patent, essentially blocking Apple from continuing to sell its current edition of Mac OS X and any future editions that might draw on the supposed infringements.

Details of the settlement weren't announced. IP Innovation/Acacia says it's licensed its GUI technology to Apple.

Acacia Technologies is best known as the owner/licensor of the "V chip" technology used in television parental control systems. Acacia owns over 140 patents grouped into 38 patent libraries covering areas including audio/video enhancement & synchronization, broadcast data retrieval, computer memory cache coherency, credit card fraud protection, database management, data encryption & product activation, digital media transmission, digital video production, and more.