Submission + - Microsoft licenses Office UI
PCM2 writes: "Old-time Mac OS programmers will remember when Apple first released its groundbreaking Human Interface Guidelines, which described how developers could give a consistent UI to their Mac software. Fast-forward to today and Microsoft is doing something similar with its much-touted new UI for Office. Only in Redmond's case, the UI must be licensed to each developer. Among the terms of the license: 'The Design Guidelines are Microsoft's confidential information. As long as they remain confidential, you cannot disclose them to anyone else without Microsoft's prior written approval ... This license contains no sub-license rights.' Apparently the UI is valuable Microsoft intellectual property."