This is a new claim and not one that will find many takers imho.
"Apple has said they are not interested in licensing"
This is far from the truth. They certainly offered licensing to Samsung. $30/device might sound like a lot but that was a starting point in a negotiation.
> This is a new claim and not one that will find many takers imho.
So Netscape Navigator 2.0b1 was cribbing off the the iPhone when it designed "Live URLs" detecting URLs and email addresses in mail and newsgroup messages? And Borland had a particularly good time machine to add detecting phone numbers to dial in your notes to the Sidekick TSR in the 80s?
Oh, I forgot, Google clearly copied Siri when it released "universal search" for the G1 (in Cupcake, IIRC). I mean they should have known that porting Google Desktop Search to Android would obviously infringe on Apple's patents. I've sure Eric Schmidt got the idea for Desktop Search in an Apple board meeting. I just wonder how he got his notes back to Googlers in 2004.
One of the benefits of Android being open source and free software is that it encourages small players to start competing with giants by giving them a nice OS and the ability to tweak it. This is why we can have smartphones, tablets, netbooks, smartwatches, ski goggles, cameras running Android. All designed and produced by many different companies, from multinational giants to small Kickstarter startups. No worries though. Soon, every one of them will realize they can get sued for "text correction" and how naive they were to think that they can just build upon open source and free software to realize their goals. As a startup should you care? Absolutely not! You should simply develop for iOS only, using iMacs and Macbooks.
And if they gain traction, they will be sued by Apple.
If you wanted to see either Open WebOS or MeeGo in the US (rather than China), Apple's lawsuits have effectively closed that door for the foreseeable future. No smartphone startup would be crazy enough to wade into this legal minefield.