Since everyone is suing everyone else I don't know why people want to single out Apple. They got hit pretty hard by Nokia a couple years ago. I think they learned a hard lesson about how the game really works. I don't know how to draw the distinction between Apple offensively suing Samsung and Motorola offensively suing Apple -- or for that matter Samsung counter-suing Apple. It's all the same game and everyone is playing by the same rules. It seems the biggest difference is Apple (and Microsoft via licensing) are having success while companies who were best known for selling microwaves 5 years ago are losing. I don't mean to mock Samsung because they do make pretty good devices but the time-line is simply on Apple's side here.
Actually, IMO the Nokia lawsuit is a great example of why everybody picks on Apple and how Apple has changed the rules of the game.
The old rules of the game were that
1) all the big guys cross-licensed each other's patents
2) the big guys got together to create standards and used patents to monetize these standards.
Note that the old rules of the game weren't particularly fair to the little guys, but at least they weren't the mutual destruction that Apple has started.
Apple is a big player in #2, receiving a fair portion of the MP4 licensing profits, for example.
But of course, Apple being a relatively new phone maker doesn't have any skin in the "phone standards" game, and has to license them from the older players like Qualcomm, Nokia & Motorola. The standards agreement force these guys to license in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory fashion (FRAND).
Nokia said that a patent cross-license was FRAND. If Apple were good guys, they would have agreed -- they could get these phone-essential patents for less or even no money. However, they were reserving these patents for offensive purposes, so Nokia & Apple couldn't come to an agreement, essentially forcing Nokia to sue them.
