> Companies seem to care very little if their little patent wars leave a little or a lot collateral damage.

Totally true and never argued a different point of view. Just consider how killing Android would be a major blow to Google and how likely it is to land such a blow on a company like Google in a situation like this. What I meant was, that considering the context and the chances, it is much more likely that whoever wins, wins some millions, maybe even billions. That will hurt the loser, maybe hurt the companies overall value, but it will not kill Java or Android.

Btw. I think it is really interesting, how both sides in a discussion can think the other one is kind of naive and blind, because they don't really get the point of the other one. Your ostriches-argument is exactly what I thought when I wrote my comment (just exchange optimistic with pesimistic)!

Do you have any sources about how GIF patents ended up doing a lot of collateral damage? Wikipedia says that .png was invented in response but was that really damaging?