Comment Apple's Afraid (Score 1) 542
Apple's just as sleazy as lots of other companies who are out there fighting patent wars, but I do agree that in this case Apple is attempting to monopolize the market against what it sees as a serious threat. If it weren't for them actually having bullshit patents to wave around, the government would likely be chewing their asses up for their behavior.
I mean come on, they're suing over the act of making phone numbers and URLs in text messages clickable. This is in no way an original idea from Apple, they just got the patent on it first, since apparently nobody else thought this was worth patenting to begin with. I've even written code which does the exact same kinds of things, just because it's stupid to not add such a convenience for users. So why does performing this task inside a text message make it patent-worthy?
Just flush the entire patent library out already. Obviously 99% of them were passed by people with absolutely no understanding of technology or common sense. I could write some long detailed explanation of a particular way to submit a Slashdot comment, and I bet I'd get the patent for that too.
Meanwhile, it's always funny to see Apple fanboys out in full force claiming Apple is just protecting their company, even though if the opposite had happened and Microsoft or Samsung had forced the iPhone to stop being sold, it would be civil war.