There are plenty of innovative and unpatented areas of Android. The problem is "A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent cla

There are plenty of innovative and unpatented areas of Android. The problem is "A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims" - this is insane. Patents should protect prior art, not every single trivial software task. I'd guess it's impossible to create a new mobile phone and OS without violating patents.