They might have lost them in the end, but they were certainly not “thrown out” as would have happened if they simply patented a grid of icons with trivially-obvious prior art. Regardless of your belief in the overall merits of their case, it’s very obviously a much more nuanced issue than people here apparently believe.

?? Apple's claims were dismissed in summary judgements -- yes, their cases were "thrown out" elsewhere. Where there were actual trials, in the UK for instance, Apple not only lost and was even sanctioned by the court for disobeying the court decision. Your "belief" that Apple won by merit really has no reality outside Apple's hometown. Yes and only in Apple's home country, as other commenters have noted, do you have the chief executive Obama coming out reversing Samsung's win at ITC that would have ended all these unnecessary lawsuits years back.

Apple also had it's home-country's executive intervene when the Obama administration blocked the import ban Samsung won against Apple. Yet snarky HNers act like there were no fingers on the scale.