When you look at the comments outside of the fanboy vacuum here, you get a
real sense of the court of public opinion on sue-happy Apple.
Another good comment (again, not by me, but sums up the sentiment):
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LinuxGuyFromRI says:
Thu Mar 04 10:00:08 PST 2010
"but protecting Apple's incentive to innovate"
Baloney. Patents have never been shown to encourage innovation. They allow the holder(s) to sit back and collect licensing fees for the term (currently 20 years) of their patent. Only after their patents have expired are they encouraged to innovate to continue their patent licensing revenue. That whole cycle slows innovation, rather than increasing it.
But that is not what Apple is after or else they would of just licensed their technology. Instead they are being anti-competitive by using their patent portfolio to prevent others from competing in the smart-phone market.
By allowing Apple to pursue this claim, the government risks creating a monopoly in which Apple controls what features you can have in a smart-phone and what cellular providers you can use that phone on (currently AT&T).
Imagine being stuck with an iPhone for 20 years that maybe gets incremental upgrades, for which Apple could charge whatever they want for.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/190799/apples_lawsuit_against_htc_bad_for_consumers.html
