Stefan Mileschin

One of the highlights of Apple Messiah Steve Jobs' career was also one of his biggest blunders.

The spiritual and temporal head of the cargo cult gave a keynote to Macworld in January 2007 which was one of his best. To the cheering throngs he announced, in detail, a major new product six months before its expected availability. He said that Apple was releasing an iPhone.

This was unusual for Jobs and Apple. The company is as secretive as the Bavarian Illuminati and never tells anyone what it is doing. In this case, Jobs broke the mould.

On paper it was a good idea, it generated the sort of hype which was going to propel the smartphone into a must have item. But Jobs failed to understand the implications the move would have on his German patents which could undo his "thermonuclear war" with rival Samsung.

According to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, the Bundespatentgericht, or Federal Patent Court of Germany, declared that by giving so many details about the phone six months early, Jobs had invalidated his own patent.

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