"Paying for lawsuits has to come out of profits/income. Profits come from the customers. So the customer pays."

Actually the shareholders pay - or rather they don't receive.

Products have to be priced competitively, so consumers will buy them. A company can't simply hike selling prices in order to offset the costs of legal battles. Those costs do impact on company profits, and therefore on shareholder dividends - they don't directly affect consumers.

Many of these cases are settled out of court - it's a game of bluff where both firms know that neither of them will 'win' and they are strutting their stuff to gain maximum profit with minimum loss.

I think the fault ultimately lies with the US Patent Office, which will issue patents without checking.

Kodak have now started to use the courts as a source of revenue, but this week a Judge ruled against Kodak in a case against RIM (Blackberry) and Apple, as the Patent in question was invalid on the grounds of "Obviousness"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/22/applerimkodak_patents/