As reported by just about everybody, those litigious bastards are at it again. The BBC has a reasonable summary, but Gizmodo seems to have the best coverage so far, including the list of (20!) patents, the full filings, some links to Apple’s related issues with Nokia ((six of one and half a dozen of the other there really)) and Palm, and a brief response from HTC.

It seems fairly clear this is mostly about competition from Android, but get this:

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Edit:

Let’s compare that to his opinions when it’s the other way around:

That man is so full of shit.

Update:

HTC finally responds – sadly with just the expected content-free press release. ‘We’re really good’, ‘We innovate loads’, ‘We don’t think this is fair’, etc.