>> So why these two completely different definitions? Burst patents clearly do not talk about signal frequency. So why is Apple attempting to make this point? Do you have any idea? Are they totally nuts, or is there a "reason to their madness?" <<

I think you should see it as lawyerly rhetorical strategy. If you can't meet the other side's argument on its own terms, you try to change what you're arguing about, change the ground you're fighting over. You make solid-sounding, confident arguments over issues on which you have the better of the argument, and you pretend that those issues are what the fight is about.

Why are the lawyers doing this? Because they're representing their client, and they have to say something and turn in the brief and other papers by the deadline.

So they say the best they can. And if they know it's weak, they also try to persuade the client to try to negotiate a settlement (all the more difficult to the extent the client has a huge ego and may dislike being told to show weakness by settling - and all the more difficult if the client is distracted by, say, SEC proceedings).

I don't understand the technology well enough to assess whether this speculation is sensible for Apple or not; I'll have to rely on teresadactyl and others for that judgment.

But as a lawyer and a veteran of Federal court big-case litigation, I can certainly spot the tactic. I've used it, and seen it used, a whole lot when the client has a thin case, or a thin spot in the argument that I want to "mayonnaise over." (Thanks for the term, burstingsquidoo.)