Should Apple win current legal battles, payoff would be huge

Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi believes that Apple is confident it will win current legal battles with HTC and Samsung, and is therefore in for the long haul. Apple has "more to lose" than its rivals, Sacconaghi notes, and a whole lot to win.

Philip Elmer-Dewitt has highlighted the most interesting notes from Sacconaghi's statement, including:

• We anticipate that Apple will push its legal claims hard and unrelentingly and believe that the company's key goal is to upend Android's momentum by forcing a work around on key essential features which, if successful, could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple.
• Should Apple prevail in forcing Android to rework some of its functionality, resulting in market share shifts, it could have huge, positive financial implications for Apple...a 10 percentage point shift in smartphone market share from Android to Apple...is worth an estimated $30B+ in annual revenue and $10+ in annual EPS to Apple.

That's a lot of dough. Steve Jobs has long said that Apple takes its patents seriously, which Tim Cook recently reiterated: "We have a very simple view: we love competition, but we want people to invent their own stuff. And we're going to make sure we defend our portfolio."