In a court case that began last year, Apple (AAPL) charged the young upstart Psystar, which makes Mac knock-offs, with a host of copyright and trademark violations. The venerable computer and consumer electronics company said that Psystar had infringed its copyrights by selling PCs that looked like Macs and ran slightly modified versions of its Mac OS X.

Psystar apparently didn't have much of a case. On Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled in Apple's favor in a sixteen page decision. The most important part of the court's opinion is that companies cannot resell the Apple OS to consumers because they are "unauthorized copies" which violate Apple's terms of use for the software.

The S&P 500 index is so far having a fine year, up a bit more than 20%. But several big-company stocks in the index have doubled, or better, over that time. Among the best-performers are some of Amerca's most well-known companies.

Here's a look at 10 of those and their prospects of advancing further -- or sliding back into the large pack of equities that have had only modest advances during the current bull market (all prices are as of the close on Nov. 9).