You gotta love the downvotes, with no actual argument against it. Heck, I'd even love a post to show that I'm violating some HN ettiquette (maybe there's ettiquette on HN now that its frowned upon trying to use data to back up your claims?). I suspect this has more to do with ideology/fanboyism than actual content, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
From your first post: There's no reason why Android shouldn't have built up similar IP protection in this time. This is why I say whoever ran their IP strategy should be shown the door. This is a firing offense to find yourself in a position where the only way to protect yourself is not to assert your own IP, but to have to resort to buying IP you didn't create.
This is one of the many things that I (and probably many others) find fundamentally broken with the patent system. If I'm creating my own mobile operating system from the ground up, I shouldn't have to patent anything if I don't want to. Actual innovation comes in the form of lines of code, not numbers of patents. "IP" as you put it is orthogonal to the actual productive work of a company.
Patents, in my view, should be used strictly to prevent a competitor from producing a direct ripoff of a highly specific invention.
You don't seem to understand. Apple is, by definition, a patent troll. Therefore, whatever it is that they are doing is, by definition, patent trolling. Hope that clears things up.
I would have thought "patent troll" typically describes patent owners who produce no actual products, and only hold patents with the intention of extracting money from others. Apple clearly does produce actual products.
