Not just lawyers, but entire companies want to be paid for stuff like this. See Microsoft, for instance:

> Microsoft focuses on Oracle's argument that copyright supports "non-literal" elements of software. In other words, Google can be found a copyist—even if there's no actual copying of code. The "structure, sequence, and organization" (or SSO) of software "can, in some instances, be protected by the copyright in the work." Copyright violations can be found in a software case "even when the defendant did not copy the underlying developers' code," Microsoft insists, because the defendant has copied "some other, non-literal element of the software."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-foresee...

So it's not just literal "copying" (accidental or not) that must be punished/paid for, but companies or developers should be forced to pay for making "similar" APIs as well.