“Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog reports on a note issued by Chris Whitmore analyst Chris Whitmore to clients today, listing four possible outcomes of the patent wars between Apple and the Android ecosystem, and their impact on Apple’s shareholder value,” Florian Mueller writes for FOSS Patents. Philip Elmer-DeWitt, the author of the article, says that the note mentions a neutral outcome (no winner) and one in which Apple comes out on the losing end as possibilities but actually focuses on two more favorable outcomes: ‘a settlement where Apple licenses its intellectual property for about $10 per Android device sold’ [or] ‘where Android’s feature set or ability to distribute is diminished.’”

Mueller writes, “The analyst apparently believes outcome 1 would raise Apple’s share price by approximately $35 (a terribly erroneous belief in my opinion, as I’ll explain further below), while outcome 2 (described as ‘considerably less likely’ in the article) would offer an ‘enormous’ payoff since Apple could capture, for example, ’25% of the future anticipated Android market,’ in which case its share price could grow by roughly $260 per share.”

“If Apple had to settle for a mere $10-per-device royalty without any further effect on competitiveness that would result from restrictions on features and/or distribution, investors should give serious consideration (after a full analysis of all of the relevant issues and factors) to shortselling Apple’s stock. Why? Because this would open the floodgates to Apple going once again through what it experienced in the 1990s: commoditization,” Mueller writes. “$10 per device is nowhere near the royalty level that offsets the continuing erosion of Apple’s market share.”

Much more in the full article – recommended – here.

MacDailyNews Take: The only option is to go thermonuclear. We love the smell of fallout in the morning.

Related articles:
Apple vs. Android patent war: HTC forced to drop one feature, Motorola may have to drop another; more to come – December 23, 2011
Apple likely to win German ruling against Motorola in February – December 22, 2011
HTC testing new Android models due to infringing Apple iOS patent – December 21, 2011
U.S. ITC backs Apple in patent ruling against HTC that hits Google – December 19, 2011
Steve Jobs: ‘I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product; I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this’ – October 20, 2011