If Apple really felt their product was superior, I'm sure they wouldn't need to worry about their competition enough to sue them.

Sorry, but that statement is just silly.

To bring any new product to market inevitably requires a lot of R&D, development expenses, and a certain amount of risk-taking, hoping you really are inventing the next great thing.

Once a product is proven to be successful it is relatively simple for a competitor to attempt to copy or duplicate the most popular facets of that device. Because they did not have to spend resources on the same development and market testing, it stands to reason that the copy product could also be sold much more cheaply than the original, giving the competitive product a significant cost advantage (or giving the company creating the product a higher profit margin, or both).

I'm not saying anything specific about Apple or Samsung in this case, but product superiority alone is rarely the competition killer you appear to make it out to be.

That's reading a bit too much into it.

Apple's lawyers have always been busy. In the "PC era", Apple sued businesses that dared to use an apple as its logo.

What I have gathered from US law is that they have to do it in order to protect their trademark. If they don't sue, it's same as giving up the trademark. Please correct if I'm wrong.

You get a trademark for a specific context.

If Apple's trademark was restricted to the context of computing (likely), then suing anyone who dared using an Appple in their logo was beyond the score of necessary protection.

One problem Apple computer had is that it's trademark was limited to computing. That caused problems when they branched out to other markets such as 'computers that can do MIDI'

In particular, they had quite a few disagreements with Apple Records about doing audio. Even though more or less the only people who know Apple Corps/Records think "of the Beatles' records", they took action against Apple even as early as 1978 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer)

I think those lawsuits may have affected company culture at Apple Computer, now Apple Inc.

Which is exactly what they do

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8858333/Apple-ta...

I guess it is just an issue of semantics, but while I disagree with Apple here, I have a hard time calling them a 'patent troll'. To me, that always indicated an NPE who was suing random people over a patent that had never actually been implemented in a product.

I think Apple is wrong (and a little short-sighted) here, but I don't think this puts them on the same level as Lodsys or IV.

Apple is definitely a patent troll, even if they're doing it indirectly. Ever hear of the Rockstar Consortium?

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/rockstar/

There is ZERO evidence that Apple has used core FRAND patents (which that article refers to) against its competitors.

But Samsung, HTC, Google etc have. Hence the ITC/EU investigation of those companies.