The difference is that Apple actually invented the technology it accused HTC — and by proxy, Google — of “stealing” (to use Steve Jobs’ verb). One of the patents Apple cited in its 2010 suit — Patent No. No. 7479949 — is a 358-page document signed by Jobs himself that covers everything from the way a finger touches the screen of a smartphone to the heuristics that turn those touches into commands.

HTC and Google, by contrast, are accusing Apple (whose smartphone designs they have plainly copied) of violating patents they bought fourth or fifth hand.

“Patents were meant to encourage innovation,” Google’s chief legal counsel David Drummond wrote last month in his famous open letter

“When patents attack Android.” Google’s enemies, he complained, were using “bogus” patents to try to “strangle” Android.

“Fortunately,” he added, “the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means.”

Indeed.