I guess it's not mentioned because it's irrelevant? The people on HN seem to care a lot about lawsuits and companies copying eachothers features, but most people buying smartphones couldn't care less. People don't care who invented something first or who sues who, people just pick whatever seems to be the best product that they can afford.

I don't think that HTC failed because of a lawsuit; Samsung was pretty successful despite all the lawsuits, and Apple is similarly killing it despite constantly being sued from all kinds of companies.