Very relevant, IMHO. I don't want to hear "think of the children!1!!11" as an argument against patents any more than I do for or against anything else.
When people use the "think of the children" argument, they are usually talking about the hypotheticals. "Think of the children" when you let guns or drugs in the neighborhood. "Think of the children" when you legalize prostitution.
In this instance however, it is think of this very specific child. There is no hypothetical child here who might be harmed. There is a real, actual child who will lose her ability to communicate if this app is pulled off and remotely deleted from her iPad.
When Apple yanks apps from the store, they are not remotely deleted from customer's iDevices or PC's. There are a small handful of cases where remote deletion was used, and IIRC, it was all various forms of malware.
As far as I'm aware, patent cases usually end in injunctions and fines. I'm not aware of any case where the infringing party had to go out into the world and round up all the products they sold. While the internet may make that easier for Apple, I still think it would be an extraordinary thing for a court to order. The court does not have the authority to give such commands.
As far as I know Apple has yet to use its ability to pull apps from devices. Apple said it only will do it when malware appears and that has not yet happened.
