So, now Microsoft and Apple are buying patents and they're the bad guys for doing so? Microsoft and Apple use patents to bring forth lengthy and costly lawsuit

So, now Microsoft and Apple are buying patents and they're the bad guys for doing so? Microsoft and Apple use patents to bring forth lengthy and costly lawsuits in an attempt to hurt their competitors. I'd say that's a lot worse than the act of buying up a company for patents in and of itself. Google has enough money to survive this so called "patent war", but most of this could easily be avoided if Google just invented and patented their own stuff instead of trying to copy and use other people's ideas an inventions without paying a reasonable fee to use them. It's not like Google couldn't afford to license Java and various patents from Apple, Microsoft, Kodak, Nortel, etc... You don't have "enough money" if you give it away to anyone with their hands out. As a software developer, I disagree that I should have to pay to "license" an idea that I had, that someone else just happened to come up with before me. Or that it is expected that I should try to patent as many of my "ideas" as possible so I can attempt to milk other people for money down the line.