The Cupertino juggernaut had the smartphone market sewn up for years with their iconic iPhone, until Google's Android OS allowed other handset markets to offer features (expandable memory, different screen-sizes) that Apple doesn't. In this regard, Apple's phone-strategy recalls Henry Ford's assembly-line breakthrough in the early twentieth century: the Ford Model T was the first automobile mass produced on moving assembly lines with interchangeable parts, making it affordable for middle-class buyer. But the popular Model T joke of the time highlighted a downside: "you can have any color you like, as long it's black." Apple does offer white iPhones, but they're all the same size, and you can use any dashboard you like, as long as it's iTunes.

With this level of competition in the cutthroat mobile space, lawsuits are inevitable. That doesn't make them welcome: legal costs are invariably passed on to the consumer. If HTC or Samsung shreds stacks of cash bashing their head against Cupertino's legal eagles, and burns more defending themselves, who pays? You and I do, when we purchase a mobile device. Enterprises and SMBs do, when they decide to use mobile devices to improve their workflow. Technology can improve business-processes, but a "lawyer-tax" on the hardware is a hindrance. It's a lose-lose situation.

Alas, I don't have any solutions. What happened at Apple's legal department--do they need a better map and more China/Taiwan legal experts? When disruptive products like the iPad create wheelbarrows of cash, lawyers circle in expectation. Perhaps one of the corollaries of Moore's Law is that the world of IT will increasingly look more like the world of business-as-usual.