In this case. Apple has a history of demanding extortionate patent licensing fees for incredibly obvious ideas.
You seem to be missing the bigger picture. The attack on Qualcomm is against the company, not the patents. Qualcomm snapdragons are the only competitive ARM chips against Apple's A series.
Apple is trying to destroy Qualcomm and monopolize the market. That's not going to help the little guys you claim to care so much about.