First Apple, now Microsoft. Sucks to be HTC. Is Google going to step up and defend their seemingly very patent-infringing OS any time soon?

Can they?

They are not a party to the suit, and they apparently don't have any useful patents of their own in this area to fight with, even if they were.

I predict HTC and Motorola will enter into a cross-licensing deal, and Motorola will help HTC.

Why do the patents need to be in the same area (ppl keep saying that, but I don't understand why they have to counter-punch in the phone market)? They have patents on pretty broad things, non-phone related things, like MapReduce.

Doesn't seem to be worthwhile to be an Android manufacturer. Lawsuit from Apple and licensing arrangement w/Microsoft.

HTC and Motorola would be a great match. Great patent portfolio and radios (Moto) meet great device design, fast execution (first touch phone on the market) and better distribution (HTC).

They make patents sound like a pissing match (pardon the terminology). I really don't understand the "I have patents that are vague but are issued in the tele-comm industry so I could potentially sue you by picking one at random... So don't sue me." I need the details on what particular portion Microsoft feels is infringing, because right now it just sounds like they are throwing their weight around because they can.

So, does anyone know which patents are these, then?

Can't compete? Litigate.

This is covered in some detail in the great book, "High Stakes No Prisoners" by one of the founders of Vermeer (which became MS FrontPage when MS bought them) - MS sits down and starts talking about their patents on editors and editing technology in general.