“Apple Inc. licensed its prized design patents to Microsoft Corp but with an ‘anti-cloning agreement’ to prevent copying of its iPhone and iPad, an Apple executive said on Monday,” Dan Levine and Edwin Chan report for Reuters. “The testimony from Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler came in one of the most closely watched technology trials in years”

Levine and Chan report,” Apple’s decision to license its design patents to Microsoft was consistent with its corporate strategy, Teksler said, because the agreement prohibited Microsoft from manufacturing copies. ‘There was no right with respect to these design patents to build clones of any type,’ Teksler said.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Imagine if such a deal with and “anti-cloning agreement” had been done with the Mac OS way back when.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Andrew W." for the heads up.]