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Comment by amartya916 | Hacker News Reader

I understand that people on Hacker News detest courtroom bickering and would rather talk about innovation, including design innovation; I think I fall under the same category, however:

a. Samsung's designs are really similar to Apple's designs. Yes, all cars have to have round wheels, but as Nokia has shown (N9?), it is absolutely possible to design a phone with the same level (or more) minimalism without copying the design DNA.

b. Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone. Same with tablets; a Xoom (esp. Xoom2), an Iconia, or a Touchpad will never be confused with an iPad.

In fact, this STEALING (couldn't mince words here) goes much deeper. This was on the internets a few days back: http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a

Doesn't this seem like Samsung crossing the line?

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>Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone.

True. If you mistook my G2 for an iPhone I'd say you need needed your eyes checked. Nevertheless, looking at the list from The Verge, I think there's an argument that it violates all but one of them:

- Rectangular with rounded corners (check)

- Centered screen with lateral borders (check)

- Horizontal speaker slot (check)

- Front surface with limited adornment. Well, beyond the elements an iPhone has (speaker slot and trackpad/home button) it has a T-Mobile logo and the 4 lite-up capacative Android buttons. IIRC, this is just like a US Galaxy S2 (the international version, which my wife has, drops the search button). Without the example of the SGS2, I'd say HTC was in the clear here, but...

The only "suggestion" HTC has clearly followed with the G2 is that between the metal bezel and the gray bumper below it, the front surface isn't entirely black.

In other words, the design rights Apple is asserting are astonishingly broad.

devil's advocate: if design has practical merits beyond branding then why shouldn't everyone copy verbatim the design elements of successful products? this can still be iteratively innovative.

Certain protections of design/research aid the consumer/society.

If all hard work is copied with no limitation, then this severely limits the amount of money you can spend on r&d to remain profitable.

Take medication for example, the r&d lead time is many years long and a huge culmination of factors, but duplicating a known-formula can be trivial.

How this applies to business: as society relies on competing bodies to spur innovation, there is a direct consequence if we remove the ability to compete:

If unfettered duplication of a product is legal, and this duplication can occur in a shorter timeline than the time required to acquire profit from the product(i.e when taking away the costs of development) then there is no business reason to ever develop the product to begin with.

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