I have just read the claims of the patent you linked. The first 3 claims [1] describe events (basic MVC stuff) as has been used in the wild since at least 1979!!!
The patent has a filing date of May 13, 1994. I had written Smalltalk code in use at Fortune 100 clients using these very same techniques for several years prior to this filing date. At the time, I was clear I did not invent these techniques.
Its my understanding there are penalties for an inventor listed in a patent fraudulently claiming they created the invention. Perhaps its time we started enforcing these penalties. I find it impossible to believe that any engineer at Next or Apple did not understand they were not the original inventor of what is claimed in this patent.
[1] first 3 claims from http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5...
1. In a computer including at least one event producer for detecting that an event has occurred in the computer and generating an event and at least one event consumer which needs to be informed when events occur in the computer, a system for distributing events comprising:
storing means for storing a specific set of events of which said at least one event consumer is to be informed;
event manager control means for receiving the event from the event producer, comparing the received event to the stored set of events, and distributing an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer; and
distributor means for receiving the event from the control means and directing said control means to distribute an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer.
2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said distributor means comprises a distributor module for each kind of event possible in the computer.
3. The system according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of event consumers are included in the computer and the plurality of consumers comprise:
broadcast consumers having no relationship with other consumers, the broadcast consumers operating independently of other consumers and of the order in which consumers are informed of the event; and
sequential consumers having relationships with other consumers, the sequential consumers requiring that no other consumer be told about an event while they themselves are processing the event and having an ability to influence when they receive the event relative to the other consumers.