No, but you can play "what if" games to death. You can't be slighted as being hypocritical for something you haven't done yet, which is what Gruber is claiming.
I think Google is whining because they didn't win, and they know communities like this are anti-patent and will automatically side with them if they portray it a certain way. It's hypocritical to complain about the patent system and that competitors won patents you also wanted and were bidding on.