In a way, Xerox PARC did get compensated for some of its ideas. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(compa

In a way, Xerox PARC did get compensated for some of its ideas. Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_(company) "The first successful commercial GUI product was the Apple Macintosh, which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was allowed to buy pre-IPO stock from Apple, in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product." Yes, Xerox later did sue Apple but... "The lawsuit was dismissed because the presiding judge ruled "that Xerox's complaints were inappropriate for a variety of legal reasons,""