Although I do think they gave Spyglass the royal shaft when they gave them a percentage of IE's royalties :-)

There's prior art all over this; NeXT's interface has the heirarchical columnar thing going on, and that's WAY before 1996.

Never mind that the whole thing is somewhat obvious to start with.

And if Contois has had the patent for so long, why hasn't he exercised it before now? Patents should be like trademarks. Use it or lose it.