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Yes there were lawsuits during steves awesome growth of apple, but they were over more substantial claims.
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I'm not sure I agree with the first part of that - but if you can provide a list of Apple suits over the past 10 years - it would make for interesting reading.
I agree with the point that I think you've been making - which is that litigation feels like it's getting out of hand - but that's not just confined to industry. That's becoming cultural.
The tech industry is a tough one to discuss without focusing on specifics - and some of these cases - you really have to drill down to the details to see if it's really something of substance. I know from experience that there are definitely good reasons to rattle the legal saber - even if it appears to be over trivial tech features - because it can make the difference between inning and losing. I think what happens though, and this is the part that I don't like, is that the richer a company gets - the easier it gets to become a bully and then IP litigation can be used to stifle competition. That part I definitely don't like - and think there needs to be serious examination of the process currently in place. I know there are a few attorneys that frequent this board - so hopefully they'll come in and correct the parts I have wrong.
I get that it feels like everyone is suing everyone - it's becoming epidemic, but until a rewrite of IP law happens, I only see that becoming worse - and not remotely isolated to Apple. There is so much IP involved that's not readily apparent to the average observer - just look at Blackberry. That's a company on the way down the tubes - but they hold a ton of IP that they currently license (after a flurry of suit activity). The problem in the tech world is that ideas - once discovered and implemented - are often easily copied - and IP is the only protection for business.
Again, I fundamentally agree that it feels out of hand - but if I put myself in the shoes of each respective company - I'm not sure that there's an alternative right now - not in the climate that exists today.