Apple was recently awarded a series of 25 patents covering nearly every aspect of the touchscreen-based user interface, including pinch-to-zoom, electronic lists, and transparent/disappearing scroll bars. The language in these patents is broad enough that Apple could use these patents to block all Android devices from the market, not just selected Samsung, HTC, and Motorola phones. Android tablets are also in danger, due to using many of the same UI elements just patented by Apple. This represents the greatest threat to Android yet, and given Apple's recent decisive court victories, it could spell the end of Android as we know it.

Two Patents That Could Doom Android
Here is a description of the two patents that could be the nail in the coffin for Android, along with the official title, and a brief explanation of what it includes:

Patent no. 7,966,578 (multitouch)

• Title: "Portable multifunction device, method, and graphical user interface for translating displayed content."
  
• Covers multitouch gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom, swipe-to-unlock, and moving items around on the screen

Apple's multitouch patent illustrated

Patent no. 8,223,134 (electronic lists, scrollbars)

• Title: "Portable electronic device, method, and graphical user interface for displaying electronic lists and documents"
  
• Covers file lists, contacts, songs in music libraries, email lists, anything that is displayed in list view on a mobile device screen as well as transparent scrollbars (they appear when you scroll up and down, or horizontally, but disappear when you're not scrolling)

Apple's scrollbar and electronic lists patents illustrated

Why won’t Apple license its patents instead of using them to block competition?

The following quotes may explain Apple's attitude regarding protecting its patents, and may explain why Apple chooses to seek injunctions instead of licensing its patents:

Thanks, Wired.com.

Basically, Apple expects to gain more profit from dominating the smartphone market once again than from licensing its patents out to the competition. Also, Steve Jobs apparently took it very personally when Eric Schmidt allegedly used the information he gained as a member of Apple's board of directors from 2006-2009 to assist in Google's efforts to develop Android. His resignation in 2009 was due to conflicts of interest and increased competition between Apple and Google.

Did Google bring this on themselves?
Florian Mueller of FOSSpatents identified a list of 11 declared valid patents that Android has officially been judged to infringe on, 9 by Apple and 2 by Microsoft. Recently, Fujifilm entered the fray, asserting that Google infringed on four patents that Mueller described as being "extremely broad in terms," including the following patent: "a telephone that can communicate with other devices (e.g., a computer) over a path other than the telephone network." Apparently Fujifilm claims they invented mobile devices that can communicate via NFC or Wifi. Mueller goes on to assert that the companies arrayed against Google are too diverse to claim a conspiracy. As far as the common claim that Android is being attacked because it's so popular, Mueller points out that Apple's iOS is also popular, and, apart from countersuits by companies that Apple is suing, only one non-FRAND patent has been upheld against Apple.

Why is the language so broad?
As I stated in a previous article, it's in the best interests of intellectual property owners to use the broadest terms possible in their patent applications. The broader the scope of the patent, the stronger a weapon it is in court against an alleged copycat. As to why officials allow such vaguely-termed patents to be granted, I explained in that article that many of these officials are ill-equipped and insufficiently educated to adequately evaluate technological patents. A tendency to put the interests of major corporations ahead of the public good may also be a factor.

Will Apple be succeed in exploiting the patent system and eliminate Android from the market?
While Apple has been on a recent winning streak in the courts, especially in Judge Koh's court near San Francisco, it should be noted that Judge Posner only last month dismissed Apple's case against Motorola, deeming it to be against the public good to block competition from the market. The broad language of Apple's patents could cut both ways, being a strong legal weapon in some cases, or dismissed as overly vague and invalidated in other cases. On the other hand, Apple unmistakably revolutionized the smartphone industry with the iPhone, and many of the technologies present on Android devices are very similar to those employed by Apple. Whether or not Apple succeeds in crushing Android depends on the competency of the courts to judge issues in software patents and mobile technology. It remains to be seen if and when Apple will deploy these legal weapons against Android, but given Apple's track record, who really expects the company not to use them?