By dragging out negotiations for years and then trying to use the courts to establish a ceiling (but not a floor) on FRAND licensing costs, I think Apple has done more to undermine FRAND. They've developed a "heads I win, tails you lose" playbook.

Remember, Motorola has been talking to Apple about licensing their FRAND patents since 2007. Over six years later, what do they have to show for it? I bet plenty of companies will start thinking that FRAND and royalty-free aren't all that different.

That's because most hackers perceive Google's FRAND suits as a justified defensive counter-attack brought on by Microsoft and Apple's patent abuse, so they are given slack.

The truth is actually cognitive dissonance. No matter what you say none of the parties deserve slack of any kind.

You can be anti-gun person, yet if someone invades your home with a gun, I'd cut them slack of they shot them.

You can be for nuclear disarmament, yet still support mutually assured destruction until that happens. The point of Google using patents is that unless they apply pain to Apple and Microsoft, they will continue abusing the system. The only leverage to bring about reform or a peace treaty is to fight back.

Yeah, I don't like Google using patents to sue people, but let's not kid ourselves why they are doing it, or who fired the first patent attacks.

You're not getting away with that. It's not OK to say one thing and do another. It called hypocracy and it's low and one thing that Google seem to be doing a lot of late. Here's the thing; Microsoft and Apple aren't abusing the system. They are playing exactly by its rules. Lodsys are a good example of an actor abusing the system. Is the system a bad one? That's a different debate.

Furthermore the "they started" it argument is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who started it! It's also factually incorrect.

In an Iterated Prison's Dilemma, Tit-for-Tat and Win-Stay-Lose-Change are both viable winning strategies from a game theory point of view. If your competitor is playing one of those strategies, and you aren't, then not responding to an attack merely guarantees continued loses.

In plain English, you are willing to forgive Google their transgressions because you feel that they are being attacked and you like/work for them, but not Apple/Microsoft for spurious reasons; this being the cognitive dissonance I alluded to earlier. When it is pointed out that this is not the actual case, you claim that that they are in fact being attacked and it's not fair, so they have to resort to the same tactics, which is forgivable because you like/work for Google. Google are as bad as Apple and/or Microsoft.

Can you expand on this? I'm not sure what you mean about Google's abuse of FRAND.