Serious question: how many times has Apple used a generic patent against their competition? It doesn't seem to happen often, which gives me the impression they're mainly defensive patents.

Recently they've sued HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Amazon for iPhone-related stuff.

that is a good question. I'm sure a lot of them are defensive patents, but then you have the whole "App Store" name debacle between Amazon and Apple, and then I start to wonder...

Start to wonder about what? Please finish that thought.

Unlike with patents if you don't defend a trademark you will lose it. Trademarks and patents are different and I'm curious as to why you're relating them here.

you're right, I'm sorry, I'm confusing the two. I'm just not too fond of the whole owning-something-intangible concept, i.e. patents on processes or trademarks on words. in my distaste for them, I guess I mixed them up.

but yes, a trademark is representative of a brand, and it's important for companies to control their brand image, especially companies who are constantly under surveillance by the media like Apple.

Understandable. I don't have anything nice to say about software patents either.