Apple's 42 Patent Litigation Actions Against Motorola And HTC, And Vice Versa

Holy crap look at all of that legal battle logistic mapping. This is a simplified view of the battles Apple has currently waged against Android phone manufacturers Motorola and HTC. Seems simple, doesn't it? This is a collection of cases that, with any luck, will be completed in oh, a decade? Can you imagine the intricacies involved here? The chart above and the study involved is done by none other than Florian Meuller of FOSS Patents. This man has created a 25 page PDF document to simplify the madness that's occurring, updated with the graphic you see below today.

Of the 42 patents this set of cases involves, 24 of them are Apple, 18 are Motorola. These cases are going back and forth as we speak. The source "FOSS Patenets" for this exhaustive review is a place that, and I quote, "covers how software patents threaten free and open source software (FOSS) and what action can be done to deal with the threat." And every post is about just that. Suit, and counter-suit. Who does it all belong to? The public, says Meuller.

[Via Cult of Mac]