[tjogin]

I hate software patents, I really do. But what alternatives does Apple have? They're the big fish in their industries, they have to file and use patents or they'll be on the other end of the lawsuits.

At least the patents Apple use in lawsuits are ones they've filed themselves, rather than having bought them.

Or as they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

[laumars]

Clearly you don't hate software patents because you then went on to justify them.

In fact, I think your whole attitude is backwards for the following reasons: While I agree with you that you cannot blame Apple (nor any other company) from filing software patents given the current culture within IT. You can 100% blame Apple for aggressively using flimsy patents to suppress obvious designs amongst competitors - forcing their competitors to deliberately cripple their products or risk having them forcefully removed from market entirely. That is not competition nor is that using patents defensively. What they are doing is exploiting a legal loophole to suppress legitimate competition.

Also, the "don't hate the player, hate the game" saying really winds me up. It's basically just endorsing moronic behaviour so long as the culprit doesn't get caught. It's just a retarded view of life in my opinion.

[smackfu]

The alternative that was the 10 years prior to this round of lawsuits where they didn't try to win in the courts.