Apple Turns on Google: Its Patent Foe

Emboldened by their massive court victory over Samsung, Apple is now going after Google. Actually, this has always been its objective because Samsung and Google are in bed together when it comes to cell phones. Steve Jobs, before he died, swore to destroy Google with thermonuclear war and spend $40 million to do so because he felt Google had simply ripped off features of the Apple phone and other intellectual properties.

Apple is targeting Samsung's and Google's Galaxy Nexus that was released in 2011. It wants to outright stop all sales of it. This was back in February and the court did issue an injunction to stop the sales, however, Google appealed and won, the injunction was halted and sales continue. This trial, Google vs. Apple goes to trial in March 2014. The Android phones have eaten heavily into Apple iPhone sales and now have 68% market share. The iPhone has a 17% share. Another reason why Apple is taking aim at Google is because Google bought Motorola Mobility, its mobile phone maker. Motorola has long claimed that Apple stole patents related to email reminders and location notifications, in addition to others. So, Apple is not clean itself, but wants to dominate the cell phone market.

The Galaxy Nexus, according to Apple, infringes on features like turning data like phone numbers into links, search from a unified search box, auto recommending text and swiping to unlock. All seem minor things to the average user who have no idea about the engineering that goes into such "nominal" things.