I assume you're talking about Nokia (since as an American, I can't be bothered to remember their CEO's name).
The Nokia situation is a little more murky than this. With Nokia, Apple tried to license their patents (which I believe are crucial to GSM), but Nokia wanted a broad cross-licensing agreement, to basically use all of the Apple display / mobile device / multitouch patents (what HTC is accused of doing). Patents involved in communication standards are supposed to be licensed on reasonable terms, so Apple cried foul. The predictable lawsuit and counter-suit then commenced.
I don't think anyone in this case is saying that HTC bothered to ask Apple to license the patents in question.
> "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. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."