Apple's anticompetitive plan to patent troll Android into oblivion hit a brick wall in Spain in what should have been an easy victory.

The Apple legal team pulled out all stops to shut down a small maker of Android tablets. This included trying get the police to arrest  and jail Nuevas Tecnologias y Energias Catala (NT-K) bosses.

NT-K has successfully appealed a 2010 injunction from a local court to ban the import of its tablet computer manufactured in China to Spain. Pedro David Pelaez, a founding partner of NT-K said that it was fairly clear that Apple was trying to keep as many tablets from entering the market as possible.

NT-K, the company from the Valencia region of Spain is demanding compensation from Apple for losses during the ban of its product and is suing the U.S. giant for alleged anticompetitive behaviour. NT-K, which is also developing a software for computerized ordering at restaurants, had before the legal problems forecast the sale of 15,000 tablets in 2011 for a total of between 4.5 million and 5.0 million euros, Pelaez said.

What was particularly nasty was that Apple threatened and then carried through on its threat to lay criminal charges against NT-K. It had worked against other small tablet makers who rolled over. Fortunately NT-K didn't.

Before he died, Steve Jobs said he was prepared to use Apple's cash surplus to kill off Android which he regarded as a personal slight from Google. But its recent court battles are actually making the company look like evil bullies.