Patents on "move your finger on this graphic to perform an action", widget animations, and OO event handlers? You're really going to defend those claims as legitimate innovations that Apple is justly upset over having had emulated? I mean, I really don't want this to devolve into a flamewar on software patents, but just because it's a patent claim doesn't make it any less of a "how dare they" reaction.

I specified "In the context of the lawsuit" quite particularly. I know that it's about patent claims, but it's about paper-thin patent claims which are transparently "how dare you" saber-rattling, not a legitimate defense of significant trade secrets.

The video you linked only makes the dichotomy more stark. Apple's attitude, based on historical observation, has been "Copying ideas and adding value is great...when we do it. If you try it from us, get ready for Lawyerfest 2010."

I'm not making any claims on whether or not they should be able to patent these things. That's not the point. At all.

Before arguing the validity of patents, the point you were trying to make is that Apple has a "how dare they" attitude towards Microsoft and Google as they enter into markets which Apple first resides. I'm saying it's not that. They expect others to come into the PC market, they expect others to come into the touchscreen smartphone market. When they get there, they compete with them. Their tiff with Microsoft in the 90's, in my opinion, was not that they made an OS with a GUI, rather that they made an inferior OS with a GUI which lacked originality and innovation and ended up with 95% market share.