I think it's funny how people pick out the most obscure patents Apple held... I like Samsung's phones but the design of some of their products was obviously "inspired" by Apple. It's always the same:
1) Apple releases new product (iPhone, iPad, Macbook Air)
2) People on the internet say this will never sell, no one needs it. All the while the product is selling great.
3) Other companies see the potential market, release similar products
4) People on the internet buy the competitor's products and like them
5) People on the internet say "X's products are better than Apple's! Apple is stupid and evil!"
Why can't people just stop bitching about Apple products? Honestly you don't have to buy them. Stop going bonkers over it. Samsung makes great phones just like Nokia and Sony. Buy those products and be happy with them. Your phone doesn't need to be the most successful to serve its purpose. And there's no need to mock the quality of Apple's products. Apple makes great products you can't deny that. Samsung makes great products too and they are improving fast. Android has come a long way and is definitely on par with iOS at this point. The market will decided which operating system / hardware design is better.
On topic: I don't support this judgement at all. Yeah Samsung got a lot of its ideas from Apple and Apple was the first company to get these types of products to market but in the end a good company has to innovate all the time. As of now Samsung found its own trademark design and smartphones are such a big market I'd much rather have that market stay very competitive. I'm afraid companies on both sides will shy away from implementing certain things to avoid looking like copycats.
As Jobs put it: "Great artists steal. We've always been pretty shameless when it came to stealing great ideas."







