For me this feels like it's the famed "Thermonuclear option" Steve Jobs alluded to: two of the biggest tech giants and their ilk conspiring to KO a competitor in one of the most cowardly ways possible.
As one shouldn't make the assumption that Rockstar is looking to compete, Rockstar is looking to defeat. This all feels like instead of studying harder you pay off the schoolyard bully to go beat up that kid you don't like because he gets better grades than you do.
Rockstar is not just a patent troll, it's the Patent Troll King. It's much larger, and has vastly more financial backing, most notably from Apple and Microsoft. It's nearly invincible (as it can't be counter-sued). Plus the case is filed in Eastern Texas, known to side with patent holders.
Both companies have much cash in their coffers, and both are feeling the heat from Android. For Apple, the high-end Android devices eat into their margins. While Apple still is very profitable, Android's break-neck pace forces them to come up with their own new features or risk looking dated, coupled with Android's often better-specced phones that are cheaper than the iPhone. Although brand loyalty is shielding Apple from large shifts, it can't afford to sit still. Microsoft on the other hand, is playing catch-up in Mobile after missing the boat miserably, and while the focus should be on making their own products better, they largely seem to have been industrious in harassing Android hardware manufacturers, plus employing some questionable PR-tactics to smear its competition. They'd both be relieved to see Android wither and die.
The tactic at the heart of the battle against Android seems to be the following: increasing Android Total Cost of Ownership by drowning it in patent licenses. This in an attempt to make it toxic to any OEM or potential Android partner (as they have to pay license fees, or could be sued to oblivion if they refuse), all in a bid to make Android less attractive (vis-a-vis e.g. Windows). I don't know the might of Android/Google, nor how much strength it'll need to face off against the now teamed arsenals of both Apple and Microsoft. If Rockstar can string Android up with enough patent licenses, OEMs will bail, developers will leave and Android revenues will dry up. It'll make a Windows license look cheap and safe in comparision. Then Microsoft can return to pointing and laughing at the open-source community, sit back and let their software rot once more as they just eliminated their direct competition. They'll have some air fist-fights with Apple to seemingly 'compete'.
What more is Rockstar than a hired gun they can sic on any software outfit that might prove competitive? What if Microsoft feels that Valve's SteamBox is getting a little too much traction for their comfort, why wouldn't they just send their bully after them? What if Ubuntu can cling on to some larger marketshare when it can smoothly switch between phone and desktop software? Why shouldn't Microsoft try and hobble innovative efforts by letting Rockstar make the developers' lives a living hell? It's more than sickening that some Microsoft/Apple fans are already reacting all indignant and holier-than-thou now that their patent lackey has a Nortel patent on search, as if Google stole web-search from them all along, and they only just noticed it.
What can counter Rockstar? At what point is this hulking giant too big for the market it's trying to disrupt? What stops this beast from going after any open source project that proves slightly popular? How can a developer rest easy at night, knowing that any day a Rockstar lawyer might be knocking on his/her door, and that financial ruin lies ahead? Whether by lawyer fees after a Pyrrhic victory or after being shut down because he/she was found to infringe on something so very basic a child of five years old could have figured it out? John Vesci himself said that 'Pretty much anybody out there is infringing', meaning that any company name that gets in their sights, they can take apart.
Is that furthering the sciences? Is that what passes for innovation nowadays? As a developer, this makes me sick to my stomach. But the system allows it, and there's been too much financial profitability to get this genie back in the bottle, so the odds of reform happening before this warhead hits are slim. Even if it were to happen, it'll be thoroughly undressed and defanged before being applied to any case worth its salt.