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Apple losing the patent war against Android

It's not secret that Steve Jobs hated Google's Android operating system. He was quoted in his biography as saying,

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

A report by Newsweek shows that he may have his financial wish but without any of the success he had hoped for.

The company, while not bleeding money, is spending a sizable chunk of funds trying to block the sales of Android devices. Most of the cases revolve around the "look and feel" of either the device, the operating system, or both. According to one report, Apple has spent over $100M attacking phone maker HTC alone, and have almost nothing to show from it. Even in cases where Apple wins, the workarounds have been trivial. For example, Samsung simply increased the size of the frame of their Galaxy Tab to get around the violation. This isn't new territory for Apple, either. The company sued Microsoft for "copying" their GUI back in 1988, another case that ultimately got them nowhere when the courts ruled against them.

Now that Steve Jobs is no longer running the company, will Apple start to back off of their courtroom attacks, or is this mentality engrained in Apple's fabric?

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