"Or that Apple wouldn't have released the iPhone, which is a cash cow for them, if they couldn't patent it?"
Patents were definitely part of the plan from the start or Jobs wouldn't have stood on stage in front of a giant 200+ slide at the 2007 keynote and said:
"We filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone and we intend to protect them."*
With no patents they wouldn't have had any defense against the other mobile phone makers. That's the way it works. You say I infringe your patents, I say you infringe mine, we come to a cross-licencing agreement. Otherwise, I pay you money.
First you say "Apple would still have released the iphone" and then "...they [patents] do allow entrenched interests protect their market from upstarts." You seem to be contradicting yourself.
When Apple released the iPhone, they were the upstart in the mobile phone segment. The patents are what allowed/allows Apple to protect themselves from the 'entrenched interests' of the market. That is what good the patents provide.
Patents were definitely part of the plan from the start or Jobs wouldn't have stood on stage in front of a giant 200+ slide at the 2007 keynote and said:
"We filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone and we intend to protect them."*
With no patents they wouldn't have had any defense against the other mobile phone makers. That's the way it works. You say I infringe your patents, I say you infringe mine, we come to a cross-licencing agreement. Otherwise, I pay you money.
* Bottom of this page - http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-s...