Our patent system is insane, granted. But in this case, at least Apple, ya’ know, actually invented some of the stuff they are using against Android.
If you don't believe Apple invented them then come forward and provide some evidence. I would imagine Google and the Android OEMs would throw a few million your way for the trouble.
So yes, there is a well understood process for invalidating patents. And that is, no doubt, going to play a major role in the case. But all that comes after the problem itself--the injunction lasts while people are showing prior art and forwarding any other arguments they have.
So my complete understanding is as follows: the fundamental problem here is the patent system. The issue is that Apple was able to get weak patents and then is able to use those patents to get an injunction on a product before the patents can get tested in court. This lets them leverage a weak hand and ~$100m to weaken their competition, regardless of the patents' actual validity. This, combined with a bunch of other problems with the patent system (oh, let's patent math as long as it's run on some computer!) is why there is a call for patent reform. The reason people are annoyed with Apple is that, instead of being nice, they're abusing a broken system to damage their competition.
Of course, I'm certainly no lawyer and have been following this case only superficially. This is a good summary of what I think is going on, but could have no bearing on reality whatsoever.
While true in a strictly short term sense, not being "nice" is the sort of thing that erodes your brand image. One too many of these sorts of stories stick in a consumers head to create a generally negative image, which can be extremely hard to reverse (see Scoda).
And for a luxury company like Apple, brand image is everything.
First, you're conveniently omitting the part where Google apologized and fired the people involved: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/30/google-moca...
Second, as for Eric Schmidt not disclosing his conflict-of-interest, it's not like the Android acquisition (and its relationship to Google's mobile ambitions) was some deep, dark secret (like the iPhone was): http://www.webcitation.org/5wk7sIvVb
And that was public over a year before Eric Schmidt joined the Apple board: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/08/29Google-CEO-Dr-Eric...
It seems to me that if anyone had the responsibility of keeping Schmidt off of the Apple board because of a conflict-of-interest between Android and the iPhone, it was Apple.
That is because the perception is that they're using it to countersue Microsoft and Apple who filed the first volleys.
>Apple are playing the same legal game as Google are.
No, Apple was the initial aggressor against HTC, Motorola and Samsung.
And that matters a lot. Have you seen the PC OEMs sue each other over patents like this? They seem to compete in the marketplace like most other industries.
As long as companies keep building up arsenals of shit patents that they can use to justify these preliminary injunctions, or shop jurisdictions, the beatings will continue and make it virtually impossible for new players to enter the market for fear of legal morass.
The issue in the Apple cases that makes me so angry is that they're treating the US patent system like the Japanese 'product design' patents, only impossibly broader and less specific.
This type of nonsense - both from non-practicing trolls and the hegemony of practicing patent trolls - has a real cost. Congress needs to step in and limit the scope on a broad swath of patents, make it harder to get injunctions on this stuff, and generally find ways to penalize anticompetitive behavior.
Samsung own the South Korean government, and they've been putting up obstacles to foreign phones in South Korea for years, even before the iPhone.
For the moment, the fun stuff is coming from the Android ecosystem, and Apple is getting in the way of people getting it. Hence the wrath of the crowd who adore new things, the ones that Apple used to care about, before they crossed the chasm and jumped the shark.
Nevertheless, "Apple is getting in the way of us getting neat things" seems a more plausible source of the anger expressed than, than to believe that people have deeply held views about IP laws as they apply to this particular case, or that they have strong opinions about Apple's business practices generally (the spark point is a ban preventing consumers from buying a product, not, say labor practices in China)
If Apple were to announce a bright shiny new iPhone that was seen as innovative, and people were still angry and wanted to #BoycottApple, then this subjective hypothesis will be proven incorrect.
Secondly, IANAL and I might be mistaken, but I'm under the impression that the current case is solely about whether Samsung violates the patents or not. The validity of the patents themselves would have to be argued in a separate court case.