HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself

Good. HTC must challenge Apple's actions because Apple's really getting out of hand in their assertions of ownership.

HTC [spent a week checking that Google had it's back and then] disagrees with Apple's actions and will defend itself.<p>At the moment I can only see this battle doing 2 things: A: free press coverage [read "advertising"] for both Apple and HTC regardless of outcome. B: driving a wedge between die hard fans of both Apple and Google/HTC

It's really a giant game of Chess, here. Apple can't possibly expect to win this lawsuit.<p>Jonathan Swartz, former CEO of Sun, had an excellent blog post on the subject: <a href="http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/" rel="nofollow">http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis...</a>

Seriously, I wouldn't expect it any other way.<p>Definitely HTC would not agree with Apple's actions and would not defend itself.<p>This won't happen: Apple: HTC, I'm suing you for blah blah blah...... HTC: OK, I give up.

This press release didn't say anything. It could have been one line long. "We feel Apple's case has no merit, and we will fight it" or something of the like. That's the only interesting thing it said. Then it just went into "HTC is awesome", which has nothing to do with the case.

I can sympathisize with newcomers being frustrated by patents for technologies which seem like 2nd nature to them.<p>But what patents does HTC itself hold and enforce? I'd like to find that out, cause you know, 'live by the sword, die by the sword...'

Dreamy I know, but you'd hope that a coalition would form to defend HTC from this, unless they rather be next:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came.." rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came..</a>.

It's petty to take sides in either end of this - I doubt anyone is well read enough on the patent portfolios of either company to pass a legitimately informed comment.

So does this mean anything? Or is this what they would say even if they were really hoping to settle?

Can someone explain to me why is this a top story on HN, and why should i care?<p>This sounds exactly just like celebrity gossip, just substitute people with big companies. I just can't grasp why is this interesting and why people are upvoting this?