Apple has launched a new patent assault on its competitors, one that appears to unleash the nukes that Steve Jobs reportedly told his biographer Walter Isaacson he was going to drop on Google's Android.

"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product," the late Apple cofounder told the author of the überpopular authorized biography Steve Jobs in a 2010 interview. "I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Apple's legal team has now filed a patent-infringement lawsuit that hurls a potentially Edward Teller–level legal challenge at its smartphone and tablet competitors. Or, at minimum, one that opens up a massively profitable licensing opportunity for Cupertino.