No-one will win...
...apart from the aforementioned patent lawyers.
Given the scale of the companies involved and the tendency for them to launch patent suits at all and sundry, wouldn't it be lovely to see the courts take a dim view of the whole thing at some point and say to them:
"Right, we're sick of you all playing silly buggers - as of today, all of the material under dispute is deemed to be in the public domain and none of you bloody idiots have any patents on any of it. Now sod off!!"
Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of patent and copyright protection when it protects the smaller scale and independent innovators from being ripped off by the corporate machine, but the glut of large company patent-trollery nowadays just makes me sick and leaves me wondering whether - in this case - getting rid of the whole concept might just be worth it, even if it does entail throwing some babies out with the bathwater.