Ok, look. I know it's popular on Slashdot, especially with some submitters, to paint certain companies in as negative a light as possible and Apple is one of those companies but, good gawd, this is NOT NEWS!!
Here's a pro tip - companies the size of Apple, who invest billions (let me say that again - BILLIONS) of dollars into R&D also file for a LOT of patents. A vast majority (by a very wide margin) go nowhere other than the filing cabinet. They are patented because someone came up with an invention and, well, we live in a world where you patent inventions. Apple does it. Google does it. Microsoft does it. IBM. Samsung. HTC. The list goes on and on and on.
Implying that anything nefarious is happening because of one patent filing is absolutely, over the top, useless. If you are doing it for one company, you are very clearly and obviously trolling because, like I said, THEY ALL DO IT. I guarantee - I am willing to bet a year's salary - that if you look at every patent filing from the top 20 tech companies, you will find a notable number which are "nefarious" or "alarming".
In other words, THIS ISN'T NEWS. I don't care if it's Apple or Google or Samsung or whatever company you'd care to name. Filing a patent is not news. IMPLEMENTING a patent is news. Filing one is just business as usual.