The smartphone industry has been crazy about patents.
Many people in the tech sector believe that Google bought out Motorola only for their patents, and we're sure other companies are going to follow this pattern. This is probably a defensive measure, but we can't tell. Companies are using them as an excuse to stop the release of competitor products.
We need a patent pool for smartphones, akin to the patent pools for DVD and Blu-ray. This creates a single, unified solution for all parties to be able to create products without having to worry about litigation.