You might have read about the big patent lawsuit between Apple and HTC (and by extension Google’s Android). It is the latest lawsuit in a long and growing list of mobile-inspired lawsuits, making regular folk wonder if this was the new normal for the valley.

My favorite technology essayist/thinker John Gruber laments the pointlessness of software patents and I agree with him, though since I don’t have legal knowledge to comment smartly about it, I am staying out of the conversation. In fact all this patent stuff makes my head hurt — badly.

Instead, I find more comfort in old fashioned lawsuits around hardware and actual physical products. Those patent fights end in decisions that a normal human can understand. Today, for instance Kwikset sued Schlage Lock Company alleging that “Schlage infringes two Kwikset patents and that Schlage’s statement that its product is “10 Times More Secure” than competitive products is false.” Schlage of course disagrees.