There were days when Apple weren't the blood thirsty patent warmongering company, but these days are sadly behind the Cupertino-based company.

After a $100 million lawsuit from Creative Technology in 2006 over Apple's iPod MP3 player, the late Steve Jobs vowed to "patent it all", reports The New York Times. Jobs along with engineers at Apple would reportedly hold monthly "invention disclosure meetings". These meetings would include a lawyer, who would tell the company if the projects could be patented or not.

Even if the idea was said to be unpatentable, Apple would file a patent application anyway. A former Apple lawyer has said:

If nothing else, it prevents another company from trying to patent the idea.

Since 2001, Apple has been awarded more than 4,100 patents, but more surprisingly since last year the company has spent more on patenting ideas than on research and development.