A cautionary tale: Ortwin Gentz is a software developer whose company Futuretap has been extremely successful building apps for iPhone and iPad. Imagine Ortwin's surprise when he discovered that the company that has allowed him to earn a living has actually patented part of his work. A screenshot of Ortwin's 'Whereto' app actually features in Apple's patent claim.It strikes me that there are two bad things here: i) software patents in themselves, and ii) any one company controlling a lot of the technology we use. If this were ever to happen on the Android platform, consumers would be free to go elsewhere. Not so with Apple.