It's not often I come across evidence of Steve Jobs' fallibility, so I'm biting on this opportunity to write about it. Here is his statement taken from Apple's press release announcing their patent infringement lawsuit against HTC:

"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Patents were created to encourage R&D with societal benefit by letting companies profit from a temporary monopoly on technology they create. The whole point is for the technology to be disclosed so that people can eventually copy it. If every inventor had to reinvent the wheel in an original way before getting to build the car, we'd go nowhere.

Steve Jobs may not think its "fair" for people to copy the iPhone, but after some period of time its not really "fair" that I have to pay an absurd amount of money and deal with a terrible cell network for a phone with decent UI. They can't hold the monopoly forever.

So nobody is "stealing" your technology, Steve. You gave it to the world, and we've already thanked you with those multi-billion dollar quarters for three years. You should spend all that bread on more innovation instead of lawsuits.