If you’re against software patents, you should be against boo-hoo articles like this too. Coming up with a software idea first shouldn’t give you an exclusive right to that idea, either in the court of law or the court of public opinion.
This is silly. Apple definitely has a track record of killing small companies every WWDC, but in this case the ‘stacks’ feature has been in and out of OS X betas for many many years. IIRC they have patents on the feature.