HTC is being targeted by the two "Luigis" for "protection money" because their patent portfolio is too lightweight to even consider sueing back...

It's all a very sad testament to american corporate mentality and why we're all increasingly under the "protection" of a handful of overgrown and omnipresent oligarchs which can bully and milk smaller competitors and the masses (aka us, the consumers) in the most imaginative ways.

Here's MS protecting and collecting their gawd-and-govt-given "tax revenue" on software developed by others (based on Open Source and Google's work) running on hardware designed and built by others (HTC representing a whole class of current and future victims here).

What's next? Will the hapless consumers need to start begging for MS-and-Apple-tax-free nonpreloaded devices and handsets (like the current PC scene...) before personally installing some free OS system (perhaps Maem... Meego?) as a desperate attempt to avoid that said irrational tax?

Meanwhile Google's remaining mum, but since they're the ones licensing Android (under Apache 2.0 license) I'd really expect them to step in front and soon. It is simply ludicrous that the system allows all these licensees (of every size) to be sued at random while the actual licenser isn't...