Forgive me for saying this, but "The more the world changes, the more the world seems to stay the same".
Didn't something very similar to this happen a long time ago with the Apple vs. Microsoft "Look And Feel" copyright lawsuit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso....
And as it turns out, both parties probably copied design elements created by Xerox PARC... which were probably originally created by some researcher(s) there who read scholarly articles by other researcher(s) who probably wrote about the possibility of things similar to the created design elements existing in the first place...
So who invented what, when?
I sure as heck don't know!
But what I think is amazing is how computer history tends to repeat itself... <g>