It’s funny to watch people fight over the patent system we have. The opinions are as varied as the people that argue for or against them. Not being a patent lawyer, I can only speak with limited knowledge on how the system works. I do agree with those that say there are some crazy patents out there. I mean, they seem so broad that you could sue anyone for anything.

So, the patent system is broken. That seems to be a common thread. Another popular topic is that patents shouldn’t be awarded on software.

Take Matthew Miller’s ZDNet article:

I do not think companies should steal specific methods of creating features, but if the methods are common and result from a natural progression of thought then I am not sure it should be patentable.

On the surface, I don’t disagree. However, it seems to me that the natural progression comes from someone’s innovative thoughts and implementation. Looking back on a piece of technology, it’s easy to say that we would have gotten there anyway, but it took innovation to get things started.

Should that be protected?

And how about Michael Wolff:

It’s Steve Jobs’ signature: pride and paranoia. Behind it, too, is the motivation of all great competitors—they really don’t want to compete, they want the market for themselves.

I don’t agree. The thing that Apple thrives on is outdoing the competition. Steve loves to get onstage and demo new Apple products and how they stack up to competing products. Of course, Apple’s turn out to be cooler, easier and better.

It’s amazing to me that a lot of people seem happy — almost smug — when Apple gets sued for patent violations. But these same people get angry when Apple sues to enforce its own patents.

Again ZDNet’s Matthew Miller:

Personally, I am a bit sick of hearing about these lawsuits and Apple suing HTC actually leaves me feeling sour about Apple. I have been debating whether or not to buy an iPad since it really would not take the place of anything I own and is more of a luxury item. This latest lawsuit pushed me closer to NOT buying one because I am getting a bit tired of Apple’s arrogance, even though I do really enjoy using some of their products. Consumers may hear about this lawsuit on the news and think twice about Apple and HTC, which could hurt both of them.

I don’t think the general public is going to care one way or the other. The only people that care are in the tech crowd and it’s highly unlikely any of them will be scared off by a patent lawsuit because they know what we know — the patent system is screwed.

Regardless of Apple’s motives — going after HTC or Google — they have every right to enforce their patents. Some have said these patents should only be used as a defense and not as an offensive tool.

Well, if HTC is infringing on Apple’s patents, then they already took an offensive position. In that case, Apple is defending itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Apple is innocent. They are probably infringing on as many patents as any other company out there. The question is should they defend them?

I think they should.