What I particularly don't like about this is that it appears that most of Apple's patents are about the user interface (pinch-zoom, ...), not about actual hardware inventions.

The difference is, that hardware patents can usually be worked around, as long as you can keep the user interface stable. Changing the user interface on the other hand means that the enduser must adapt, which he usually is reluctant to do. It is a form of monopoly.

Imagine, for comparison, that Alfred Vacheron had patented the steering wheel in 1894 and had been unwilling to license it to competitors. The outcome could have been that dozens of different ways to steer a car would have been invented and users would have troubles switching between manufactures. A serious hindrance to a competitive market.

Actually this might be the first salvo in Apple vs. Google.

Google does not build devices and is therefore harder to attack than a manufacturer/importer, who builds android devices. Google on the other hand might feel compelled to help HTC, if this is actually about Android.

Might be interesting to see how this plays out.

The German constitutional court is in no position to declare an EU directive illegal or even unconstitutional as, in general, EU law is stronger than national constitutional law. (Actually there are very special circumstances, under which something like that could happen (a simple violation of the German constitution won't do) but that is rather theoretical construct and nobody feels like trying whether this holds up).

The next step would be to challenge the EU directive itself, but that is a lot more difficult as the implementation of human rights is much weaker at the European level than it is in Germany (or in any other European nation)

This is a perfect opportunity for the lawmakers to step in:
Every provider of digital content should be required to offer one of two options:
1. DRM-free content only - it is up to the consumer to keep backups of his contents or
2. a life-long guarantee for DRM-protected content. This has to be protected through third-party agreements in case the original provider goes out of business.

Yes, option 2 is costly but nobody has to use DRM in the first place.

...and as Milton Friedman said, the market can remain irrational much longer than you can remain solvent.

This quote is from John Maynard Keynes: 'The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.'

I wonder whether the authors would complain just as loudly if amazon sold a device that could read paper books to you? Disregarding the technical difficulties (scanning, flipping pages) this would be very similar to what the kindle 2 does. Yes, as technology improves a very lucrative market (audiobooks) will disappear but there are no guarantees for any market. 20 years ago there was no (or only a very small) market for audiobooks and within 10 years it will probably disappear completely. That's life. Other opportunities will open up instead. Using intellectual property laws to stop innovation is not only amoral, its futile.