Apple Gesture Patents around iPhone

I noticed a flurry of gesture patents that mentioned a 'portable mutlifunction device'. That's patentspeak for iPhone. The patents were all from APPLE Inc. Well done Apple. That's how you manage a patent portfolio. Philips and IBM used to be the masters in this line of completely covering an area with a barrage of patents. It will give Apple something to negotiate with in future business deals with other vendors. Here they all are as far as I could tell:

1. PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE, METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR INTERPRETING A FINGER GESTURE ON A TOUCH SCREEN DISPLAY (WO 2008/086302)
2. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE SUPPORTING APPLICATION SWITCHING (WO 2008/086298)
3. SYSTEM, METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR INPUTTING DATE AND TIME INFORMATION ON A PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE (WO 2008/086073)
4. APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES FOR GESTURE OPERATIONS (WO 2008/085848)
5. MULTI-TOUCH GESTURE DICTIONARY (WO 2008/085784)
6. GESTURE LEARNING (WO 2008/085783)
7. PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE, METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR INTERPRETING A FINGER SWIPE GESTURE (WO 2008/085770)
8. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE, METHOD AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR DISPLAYING INLINE MULTIMEDIA CONTENT (WO 2008/085747)
9. PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE,METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR TRANSLATING DISPLAYED CONTENT (WO 2008/085744)
10. OVERRIDE OF AUTOMATIC PORTRAIT-LANDSCAPE ROTATION FOR A PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE WITH ACCELEROMETERS (WO 2008/085741)
11. METHOD, SYSTEM, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR VIEWING MULTIPLE APPLICATION WINDOWS (WO 2008/085739)
12. METHOD, SYSTEM, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR PROVIDING WORD RECOMMENDATIONS (WO 2008/085737)
13. Somewhat earlier this year: DELETION GESTURES ON A PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE (WO 2008/030975)
14. SOFT KEYBOARD DISPLAY FOR A PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE (WO 2008/030974)
15. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE PERFORMING SIMILAR OPERATIONS FOR DIFFERENT GESTURES (WO 2008/030972)
16. EMAIL CLIENT FOR A PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE (WO 2008/030970)
17. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE, METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR DISPLAYING STRUCTURED ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS (WO 2008/030879)
18. PORTABLE MULTIFUNCTION DEVICE, METHOD, AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR CONFIGURING AND DISPLAYING WIDGETS (WO 2008/030875)
19. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR PHOTO MANAGEMENT (WO 2008/030779)
20. PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR INSTANT MESSAGING (WO 2008/030776)
21. 2007: UNLOCKING A DEVICE BY PERFORMING GESTURES ON AN UNLOCK IMAGE (WO 2007/076210)
22. 2006: GESTURES FOR TOUCH SENSITIVE INPUT DEVICES (WO 2006/020305)

Who will be able to argue with this patent portfolio? Who will be able to claim that the things Apple has patented were already invented elsewhere? Who will be able to maintain that gestures are not technical inventions but natural human communicative actions? Who will pay the lawyers to fight these fights? Here it all is in a fashion that is easier to digest than sifting through 22 patents. I think Apple has won this fight before it could even get started.