If you can't innovate, litigate. I'm not saying that Apple doesn't innovateit's one of the most innovative companies in the tech industry. But Apple's too-broad, scattershot smacks of fearful whining about Android's successes.

In short, Apple is claiming that a huge number of Samsung Android phones are so much like iPhones, that they'll confuse consumers. SB Nation's Nilay Patel, who actually is a lawyer, has the best analysis of the lawsuit, and you should read it. As Patel puts it, several of Apple's claims are based on "trade dress," which means that Apple is saying Samsung is trying to confuse consumers into thinking Samsung's products are the same as Apple's. Or, to borrow a line from Patel's former employer Engadget, Apple says Samsung makes KIRF iPhones.

Apple has some points, but its lawsuit is also full of nonsense that makes the company look desperate. Rather than cutting its opponent to the quick, it's grabbing up every piece of china it can find in the room and flinging it vaguely at Samsung, hoping something will bean the other guy. That's not the action of a company in a position of strength.

1. Some of Apple's claims are transparently false. Yes, some of the phones Apple is claiming look like iPhones do, in fact, look like iPhones, most notably the . But Apple also cites the Samsung , , and all of which have gigantic slide-out QWERTY keyboards, which absolutely nobody would ever mistake for an iPhone. The Samsung Gem is a different shape, and has several buttons at the bottom. And the has a whole extra display along the bottom bezel.

Apple also mixes up phones running Samsung's TouchWiz UI (most of the ones listed) with the Nexus S, which runs stock Android Gingerbread 3.0. This later comes into play when Apple argues that Samsung stole its iconsbut Samsung didn't design the Nexus S's icons, and the Nexus S's icons look different than the TouchWiz icons on the other phones. This all combines to make the lawsuit look like "Apple's yawp of rage at everything Android," rather than a specific complain about specific infringement.

2. There's such a thing as a design trend. As @GuamGuy pointed out to me on Twitter, the LG Prada was announced a month before the first iPhone and shares several of the design aspects that Apple claims to have inventeda rounded, black rectangular form, symmetrical black borders around a large touch screen, and such. Did Apple steal from LG? I'm assuming not (though maybe LG's lawyers are firing up their photocopiers right now). Rather, design trends exist. If every design trend could be litigated, every flip phone manufacturer in the world would be paying Motorola royalties right now.

3. This all looks very petulant. Apple has been peppering Android phone manufacturers, including and , with lawsuits for a while now. This is only the latest and broadest. With Android's market share growing, Apple is starting to look scared. A confident company innovates its way into the forefront, and then innovates again when its competitors catch up. A scared organizationthink the RIAAtries to stop competition and disruption by litigating.

If Samsung was actually trying to design iPhone clones, I might have more sympathy for Apple here. But the overbroad nature of this suitlumping in phones that look like iPhones with phones that look nothing like iPhones, different styles of icons, and claims of design innovations that other companies had before Appledoesn't reflect well on Apple's reputation as a cool, polished, and confident player. It looks like a suit from a company that's losing its grip.

I also have to wonder what this means for Apple's and Samsung's ongoing business relationships. Apple buys memory, displays, and chips from Samsung, something that Samsung noted when that company announced its countersuit.

There's a simple solution for Apple. Fire some of the lawyers who came up with this mess. Hire a few more engineers, and get cracking on that super-innovative iPhone 5.