On Intellectual Property and the Defense Thereof

Jack Purcher on the "mother of all patents" Apple was awarded:

In 2007, Samsung, HTC, Google and all others in the industry didn’t have a smartphone with the likes of Apple’s iPhone features. They didn’t have the solutions that Apple eloquently brought to market to make a smartphone truly smart. Apple carefully and meticulously crafted a full end-to-end smartphone solution. So when the copycats and their followers whine in public and on blogs that Apple should learn to compete instead of initiate litigation – I bowl over with laughter.

Killian Bell acknowledges what Purcher said, but follows immediately with this:

Admittedly, it does appear that Apple uses its legal team to fight the opposition all too frequently.

This kind of thinking blows my mind. Apple should defend it's intellectual property. Jobs said in no uncertain terms at the iPhone launch event in 2007, "And boy have we patented it".