I recall Steve Jobs holding the first iPhone at its introduction in the spring of 07. To paraphrase " this is the iphone and we have patented it from top to bottom". I thought at the time Apple has learned from its past to protect its ip from the copy cats in the world and as a company they are committed to take on anyone.

I get tired of hearing how Apple stifles innovation with its patent portfolio. Apple is not breaking any laws, they are just enforcing the ones which pertain to them.

Others had the chance to do multi-touch but did not do so. Apple was initially derided for some of its steps because they were different than what had gone before (multi-touch all right, multiple beatings on one button). Now phone makers have a chance to outdo Apple (but it is likely Apple isn't sitting back with no new ideas of its own).

The "innovation" is really a lack of trusting in themselves. They see Apple as the leader and want to follow in its wake. Eventually someone will figure out how to make easy and clear voice commands of complex subjects (sort of like Googling your own phone!) and that will be the next wave and multi-touch will not be needed--in other words, talking to your phone. Is anyone working on this? Don't be surprised if Apple is.

Spend some time and money copy cats. Be original, get the first arrows fired in YOUR back. Then sue anyone who tries to rip YOU off.

The vast majority of civil cases are settled out of court. It's much cheaper. A lawyer's goal is to get as much bang for the buck without going through a protracted court case. Intimidation (bluff, bluster, whatever) is a big part of getting there. It's poker writ large.

They claim that there's nothing special about the iPhone and other companies had better features than the iPhone long ago. If that's so, then all of Apple's patents claims will be ignored and life will go on. HTC is a very large company with plenty of lawyers (they're just short on patents). I'd hardly think they are being bullied. It's just a matter of Apple picking the biggest smartphone hardware company and letting them know they are infringing on patents. What's the big deal over this? HTC will make the necessary changes and use some other method. That seems fair enough since there must be lots of ways to get things to work properly. That's hardly shutting down HTC. They can go back to the days before multitouch.

This means multi-touch, an apple invention, is covered by multiple patents, and if cell phone makers wanna violate these patents they can expect apple to come after them. How many touch phones were there before iPhone 3G, how many after?

- A

like Nokia did before bringing their issues to the table...

How is it that Apple can make a desktop computer with a GUI interface and laptops that (other than quality/design issues) are the same design as PC laptops...folds/opens, LED/LCD screen, keyboard, battery, etc...yet they can complain when someone else also uses a multi-touch screen? I don't see the problem with other companies taking an idea and trying to improving it (or in some cases, making it worse - MS).

I hate to say this, but Apple really is taking on many of the aspects that we Apple folks hated about MS. I hope this doesn't continue, but I am afraid it will. So is that what we want...? Only Apple producing a product and forcing its competitors out of the market via questionable legal tactics (ie. we have more money so even if we are not right we can still win).

By law you can't patent something intuitive. Unfortunately, "intuitive" sums up apple's approach to an OS.

All Apple is going to do is piss off an industry that collectively can out-patent the cr*p out of them. Notice how they didn't sue Google despite the fact that most of their claim is against Android.

Watch this one play out. There is a reason analysts are now recommending a sell on Apple stock .