And from the same author:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2012/02/25/apple-mostly-isnt-to-blame-for-the-patent-mess/

Apple do everything to stifle competition rather than what they would be good at which is feeding it. If they're so sure they're that good, why do it? Android is a platform that feeds competition. Full stop. Would you rather they didn't come out with a multi platform device and watch motorola, samsung, HTC, LG and all the other manufacturers sink into nothingness?

The only thing that Google took was a portable multitouch device and a sliding photo system. There is nothing else they took other than the rest being common sense in what a developer can create with an application. Apple need to stop pretending they invented everything just because they perfected it, in their advertising at the very least. They're making the mistake a certain political party are in holding back any progress for the sake of their own face, and they will pay for it in the end.

Let me put this another way. The first known passenger automobile was created by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. Let's imagine that was the first workable computer i.e ENIAC.
Now zoom forward to 1900 when Benz (Apple?) was creating and perfecting the luxury car (hypothetically). Along comes Henry Ford (Android), notices their well built model, pieces together a consumer model from similar ideas and then all these people who can't afford Benz's cars buy Ford's instead as they do the same thing. Imagine Benz creating a super efficient internal combustion engine. Then ford notices these cars looking good, selling well and decides to build a similar engine with the tools they know and piece together a similar engine that is quick to manufacture and can be installed in any motor vehicle. Ford then feed commerce by inspiring other car makers such as GM to mass manufacture affordable and luxury vehicles of any sort.

Now imagine this conversation:

Benz: "Uh, ford, you do know we invented the combustion engine. Says so on this patent."
Ford: "Nice try but no, you just improved on a bunch of other ideas and then forked out cash on something that you will only allow to work in your own cars"
Benz: "But we were the first to get it to this stage of perfection"
Ford: "Yes, well done. I expect you sell a lot of your own cars"
Benz: "Yes but we don't like the idea that you're fuelling a mass industry of many different brands who are now all essentially ripping off our idea"
Ford: "First, that isn't innovative to claim on a engine that is essentially an inevitable product looking back. Someone was even already working on this exact idea a couple of years before you. Secondly how else would this have worked out? There isn't a single company in the world who hasn't extended on a technological advancement that hasn't been challenged. "
Benz: *attempts to rip out Ford's jugular*

Basically, everyone wants a Mercedes Benz. But they're just as happy with a Ford, an Audi, a Volvo, a Citroen, a Renault, or even a stupid Fiat. Don't hold back innovation.