Google's Eric Schmidt Slams Apple Patent Infringement Lawsuits

"The big news in the past year has been the explosion of Google Android handsets and this means our competitors are responding," says Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. 'Because they (Apple) are not responding with innovation, they're responding with lawsuits."

"We have not done anything wrong and these lawsuits are just inspired by our success," says Schmidt.

The comments follow the initial finding by the U.S. International Trade Commission that HTC infringed two of Apple's phone patents. The full ITC has not made a ruling on the matter, though, and HTC certainly will appeal.

If upheld, the decision could force other Android phone makers to pay significant royalties to their main competitor, or, worst case, prevent sales of Android devices in the U.S. market.

Whatever else one might think, Google's culture, which emphasizes providing the "best" solution in any category, would naturally lead to such thinking. Google's leaders tend to think they shouldn't win a market unless they do indeed have the best solution. So such lawsuits would tend to be seen as an attempt by a "not as good solution" to use other methods to slow down the superior solution's acceptance.

One doesn't have to agree that Android is, in fact, the best solution to understand the sentiment.

Google's Eric Schmidt slams Apple