My opinion is that Apple's patents on touch interactive are bad for consumers and bad for progress. Imagine if Xerox had patented the mouse, and never licensed

My opinion is that Apple's patents on touch interactive are bad for consumers and bad for progress. Imagine if Xerox had patented the mouse, and never licensed it to other computer makers on the terms they did. How long would UI design have stagnated on text interfaces? Would something else more/less useful arisen to work around the patent? I don't know exactly how to express this, but maybe it's best to say that I'm always "concerned" when an argument occurs where one party is fighting the wrong battle. That's also just an opinion. "Apple shouldn't have these touch patents" is a lot harder fight to win than "Apple is a bad company and does mean things to the W3C." I question the effectiveness of the latter though. Say you convince people that Apple is a meanie and is undermining standards, have you produced any significant outcome that will change things? Apple's historical disposition hasn't exactly been yielding to consumers' interests. They decide what consumers want, build it, then make a ton of money. You have to find a way to assault that head on, or use the power of law to prevent them from using these tactics. Convincing those who are paying attention that Apple undermining standards won't amount to much.