[East Africa]
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT you, but if a $200 billion company like Apple — which has about $40 BILLION stashed away in the bank — is threatening to sue you, I’d be a little skeerd. Folks, this story just isn’t going away.
Will Apple be the next SCO or the next Microsoft?
Once again, the ugly realm of patents rears its ugly head, threatening to stiffle or slow down competition…and innovation too. Is Apple right to sue HTC? Take a peek at this hotly commented ZD Net blog post and try to determine who’s in the wrong.
Here’s my take. I actually left the following comment over there:
If it’s true that no one else had these new iPhone-like ideas before it hit the market, then Apple should have the right to defend its patents. Did HTC coincidentally have the same idea for the touch screen? We’ll never know.
How does HTC prove this in a court of law. Very tricky. But what makes Apple “think” that a company like HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Google, Sony et al would not have invented the idea for a touch screen — sooner rather later? Again, very tricky stuff.
Patents suck in the scenario where 2 companies are developing similar technologies but 1 company applies for the patent before the other. That would be a bitter pill to swallow for the other company out in the cold. Wouldn’t it? {source}
Speaking of Microsoft, lawsuits like this reminds me of Microsoft’s legal department insinuating that the free open source Linux operating system has infringed on its numerous intellectual patents. In this situation, I think they’re just worried about free viable alternatives (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Linux Mint, Fedora et al) eating away at their Windows monopoly and putting the brakes on their multi-billion dollar profiteering.
Heck, I ditched Windows last year — for Linux — so maybe they have reason to be skeered too. 
