Google posted an incendiary blog today, calling Microsoft, Oracle and Apple to the mat. The blog entry, written by David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Google, accuses this triumvirate of technology firms of hoarding patents, and paying through the nose for them to insure Google doesn't get ahold of them. And, frankly, Drummond is absolutely right. Apple, Microsoft and Oracle are litigating, not innovating, as he puts it. Patent litigation is always ugly, always messy. But lately, it's become a standard approach to competition. A standard approach that allows companies to buy up the assets of other companies, like Nortel and Novell, and then use these assets to wreck havoc on their competition.

Take, for example, the pseudo-injunction Apple's won in the international courts over HTC's construction of Android phones. It's interesting to watch a company like Apple litigate so furiously, when they themselves are under attack from patent trolls, such as Lodsys. It's really a shame, too, because the people who will be most hurt by all of this litigation aren't the actual companies involved. Rather, it'll be the little developers hwo get caught up in the struggle. Building apps for Android? Maybe you should rethink that in case Android has to be changed drastically due to court action. Building an app for iPhone? Maybe you should wait until Lodsys is chased away and stops suing app makers over silly patents.

At the end of the day, all of this litigation is like a mote in the eye. Here we are, at a point in history when software developers can strike out on their own and build a business out of nothing more than their own code, and yet, our backwards patent system is littered with landmines that could take them down at any moment.

Update: Microsoft's general counsel claims that Google was asked to join in on the Novell patent bid. He claims Google refused. Google's Drummond responded with an update to the original blog post, where he claims that entering into a purchase agreement with Microsoft would have negated any patent protections won in the deal. It would have been a bit like removing some patents from everyone's retinue, for defense or attack.