The New York Times tells us today that Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung is really just a proxy for its war against Google’s Android operating system. That’s not news. But this just makes me want to pound my head against a wall:
In the case set to open this week, Apple’s legal complaint aims at some of the features that Google, not Samsung, put in Android, like the ability to tap on a phone number inside a text message to dial the number. And although Google is not a defendant in this case, some of its executives are expected to testify as witnesses.
I know we all mock some of the things that seem to be patentable these days. I sure do. And who knows? Maybe those things really aren’t quite as obvious as we all think they are. But tapping a phone number on a phone in order to dial it? There is no plausible universe in which several thousand designers wouldn’t think of doing that. Somebody needs to put a leash on Apple before the venomous ghost of Steve Jobs drags them into a rabbit hole of techno-legal vengeance from which they never recover. Enough.
