The smartphone intellectual property wars are seriously heating up, as Motorola sided with HTC this week in an effort to cover its own rear. Remember those twenty patents Apple aimed at the Taiwanese OEM? Motorola says they're no good, and is trying to get them thrown out of court -- an important tactic, because if the patents do hold water and are successfully used against HTC, Apple might turn around and sue Motorola with them too. That's because there's more at stake here than OEM phones, but Android as a whole , and as such other manufacturers that implement Android might potentially be targets as well. Oh, and don't think this is Motorola's first salvo in the arena, either -- it's also suing Apple outright to get the point across, and is similarly being targeted by Microsoft for smartphone patents of its own. We're just two guns shy of a Mexican standoff, folks.