A lot of Apple's multitouch technology originated from their acquisition of FingerWorks. That company was founded in 1998 and bought in 2005. Apple started shipping multitouch smartphones in 2007 and multitouch trackpads in 2008. Some of the early patents should be close to expiration, but it may still be years before anyone else can duplicate the '08 MacBook Pro touchpad, and Apple has made two major revisions to their touchpads since then.