> You can't knock-off a Chanel handbag. Why should you be able to knock-off an iPad or an iPhone?
I'll admit I'm not clear on US law, but aren't there some clothing makers who 'take inspiration' from high-end designer pieces and do very similar designs for the mass market? As long as they aren't labeled incorrectly, they don't seem to get into trouble.
(Not that this applies to this case, since I highly doubt most people would mistake Samsung phones for iPhones, not after a minute or two of using them. You yourself realised the devices weren't iOS in no time. In every mobile shop I walk into here, there are big Samsung signs and iPhone/iPad signs at the appropriate counters, and basically everyone knows what they're getting.)
Why should the icon layout or organisation of a mobile phone OS be protectable in the first place? All the old phones of yesteryear had icon menus as well. Or is sliding-screen navigation protected as well?
> I'm not particularly sympathetic to many kinds of patents that are being enforced these days, but Samsung is clearly trying to make slavish copies of Apple products, and Apple certainly is entitled to defend themselves against this.
Are you conflating patents with copyrighted design here? And how does the Galaxy Nexus 'slavishly' look or feel like an iPhone?
IANAL, so I'm not arguing from legal principles, but from moral ones. If you want to sell something, you should sell something that is yours, not someone else's. Apple's design belongs to Apple, not to Samsung, and consequently, Samsung should not be allowed to sell it.
People who disagree with this, I guess, must somehow feel that design is a much easier task than writing software, and therefore design should be free. (Either that or you think that all software should be free too, but then we'll have to agree to disagree.) The reality of the matter is that good design is very difficult and very expensive. Why should Apple go to all the expense of developing a great design, just to have it stolen?
Re legal principles, there are such a thing as design patents, in addition to look-and-feel copyrights, though I have no opinion on their legal merits in general. As to how Apple will progress with this legal battle, I'm sure they will use any and all legal tactics that they believe will be effective. If one asserts that they might set some bad precedent in doing so, for all I know that may very well be the case. If it turns out this way, then Samsung is equally to blame for stealing Apple's design work.
Regarding the Nexus, I can't say. The Samsung phone I saw in a TV show that clearly IS a slavish copy is this one, or one very similar.
http://goo.gl/dJazg
Clearly the "Samsung" logo gives it away, but that was covered up in the TV show. In any case, even if a logo allows you to quickly distinquish a product, I believe that Apple is certainly justified in defending against such slavish copies. In fact, any company would defend its design as Apple is doing, even if it were moral to make such slavish copies as Samsung is doing, so railing against Apple here is just railing against what any company would do.
> Apple's design belongs to Apple, not to Samsung, and consequently, Samsung should not be allowed to sell it.
I'm not sure that sole rights to a design is a moral principle. Imitating is the very basis of most design anyway - we take ideas from places and things we've seen and build upon them. If you acknowledge that designs don't occur in a vacuum, that they don't spring purely from the mind of the designer without outside influence, then maybe it's not morally wrong to take design elements from anything else, even a competing product. (The question of degree, however, is another matter.)
Product differentiation is heavily emphasised in marketing courses because it offers a competitive advantage over similarity. But that doesn't imply products need be differentiated in the first place.
Basically, IMO, companies can rail all they want about their designs being imitated, but the law shouldn't stop the appropriation of design elements -- except when it crosses the line into fake products, i.e. when there is intent to trick consumers into thinking a fake is the real thing. Taking the (perceived) pleasing aspects of a design should not be illegal.
I don't know, if it were a big company imitating the design of a small but up-and-coming rival, I would be more sympathetic to the small company, and maybe my stance would be different. But 'copying' design is not something that seems intrinsically wrong to me. I take design elements from other websites when I work on my project, and I wouldn't be able to blame another website if it took elements from me. If it imitated my design wholesale, I'd feel bemused and flattered, maybe angry if they were beating me at my own game, but I'd accept it as part of the game.
In this case, the Samsung phones I've had experience with have not looked like my iPhone 3GS, so I cannot agree that they slavishly imitate Apple's designs. The Galaxy S you linked does look similar, but the other Samsung phones I've seen do not (unless you consider rectangles with rounded corners to be sufficiently similar).
I'll admit I'm not clear on US law, but aren't there some clothing makers who 'take inspiration' from high-end designer pieces and do very similar designs for the mass market? As long as they aren't labeled incorrectly, they don't seem to get into trouble.
(Not that this applies to this case, since I highly doubt most people would mistake Samsung phones for iPhones, not after a minute or two of using them. You yourself realised the devices weren't iOS in no time. In every mobile shop I walk into here, there are big Samsung signs and iPhone/iPad signs at the appropriate counters, and basically everyone knows what they're getting.)
Why should the icon layout or organisation of a mobile phone OS be protectable in the first place? All the old phones of yesteryear had icon menus as well. Or is sliding-screen navigation protected as well?
> I'm not particularly sympathetic to many kinds of patents that are being enforced these days, but Samsung is clearly trying to make slavish copies of Apple products, and Apple certainly is entitled to defend themselves against this.
Are you conflating patents with copyrighted design here? And how does the Galaxy Nexus 'slavishly' look or feel like an iPhone?