We had hoped to keep this matter out of the courts but recent events have given us no choice. It is not unusual for cases like these to take several years to resolve. Like many other companies, Adobe has always protected its intellectual property - a substantial asset that differentiates us from others in the industry. Our decision to take legal action is made after carefully assessing the nature and the historical pattern of infringement. It is company policy not to publicly discuss our litigation strategy.
Copyrights protect the expression of ideas.
All relevant prior art that we know about was disclosed to the Patent and Trademark Office when we filed the patent application. Adobe will let the courts decide. Adobe is not claiming it owns a patent on tabs you commonly see in products and on the Web. The Adobe tabbed palette patent addresses the functionality within the tabs. The functionality is a particular user interface element and a method invented by Adobe that allows tabs within palettes to be customized, separated and reorganized by users.