Note that this does not include the confidential memorandum of understanding (page 1, line 20), which would contain the meat of what was actually agreed to by both parties.
Generally speaking, the law in the US affords one a broad ability to contract. That is to say A and B can make a deal and a court will hold them to it. This property of the law has obvious and immense value. The ability to contract is not absolute and is limited in some ways.
One of the ways that freedom to contract is limited is that contracts should not contravene public policy. In general, legal settlement, as opposed to going all the way through trial, is considered to be a good thing.
The parties reached an agreement they could accept with and the public did not have to use up scare resources of judicial time. Also, the public did not have to force an outcome on one of the parties.
And why should he mention Apple? It's not like he's making a pro-patent argument and just failing to address a huge counterexample. He's disagreeing with Google's behavior - should he take the chance to bash every large company other there?
