So they’re at it again, Apple and Samsung, fighting over patents in a courtroom in San Jose, Calif. They had a similar fight in 2012, in the same courtroom, which Apple won. Samsung has also won its share of these legal battles, including in Australia.

This time around, Apple alleges that Samsung has violated five of its patents, including the one that allows iPhone users to slide their finger across the bottom of the screen to unlock it. One of its experts testified the other day that Samsung should be forced to pay more than $2 billion for the harm done. Samsung, meanwhile, has retaliated by accusing Apple of violating several of its patents. The legal bills alone have to be running into the tens of millions of dollars.

Perhaps it is just coincidence that this latest trial coincides with the publication of a new book by Yukari Iwatani Kane, titled “Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs.” The coincidence is nonetheless telling. (Disclosure: Kane devotes several pages to a phone call I got from Steve Jobs in 2008 when I was working on a column about Apple’s unwillingness to disclose details of his health problems.)

The Apple Kane chronicles in “Haunted Empire” is not the same company she used to cover as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, when Jobs was alive. That Apple was fearless in its willingness to take risks and bring innovative products to market. This Apple, the post-Jobs Apple, has become risk-averse, its innovative capacity reduced to making small tweaks on products it has already brought to market. Though its leadership still talks a good game, it has so far been unable to deliver on the kind of knock-your-socks-off products for which Apple was once famous.