Nothing in the article suggests HTC's patent is ridiculous like what was portrayed recently in the TAL program about Intellectual Ventures. There doesn't seem

Nothing in the article suggests HTC's patent is ridiculous like what was portrayed recently in the TAL program about Intellectual Ventures. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently absurd about patenting an image compression system. I mean, imagine it was a small company that invented a new compression system that was 20% better then all the competition. Would they too be chastised if they tried to protect themselves from large corporations that ignore intellectual property law? Patent are supposed to incentivize innovation and give the patent holder an edge against the competition as a sort of prize for his work. This "edge" was sold to HTC, and now HTC has every right to protect it. Seems like Apple should just either suck it up and pay a licensing fee, or change their hardware/software to get around using this technology. The problem with the patent system is the disgusting legal harassment done by patent trolls - where smallish companies are sued over absurd patent and because they don't have the financial means to legally defend themselves they're pressured into settling; this case doesn't seem to exhibit any of those problems.