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Competition is great.

But there's a point where the "copying" that we as consumers like and benefit from crosses a line and becomes a shameless "knock-off" that we as consumers truly do not benefit from.

It's not at all clear that Samsung has crossed that line, but the line exists none-the-less and we as consumers benefit from there being a legal process to determine when the line has been crossed and penalties for those who cross it.

And in recognizing that we need such a line and a legal system to determine whether it's been crossed, we must allow that fuzzy cases such as these are inevitable. No matter how we might reform the system.

There is nothing in any of these patent cases that even approaches the "shameless knock-off" territory.

There are products coming out of China that are counterfits, or very close to existing products - and they should be banned.

You would have to be both blind and stupid to not be able to tell the difference between any two Android and iOS phones.

Yes, it's quite a bit like that old saying about pornography "I know it when I see it". But that hardly changes the point that there is no reform that can both prevent such suits and protect our interests as consumers.

A shameless knock off copies _everything_. A shameless rolex copies everything from a rolex. Rolex doesn't copy anything from their knockoffs. There has to be one way copying to classify a product as a knockoff. Instead, Apple has copied many features from android, so it's not a case of samsung / android being knockoff products. If anything, consumers have benefited from copying! Everyone complained about iOS notifications, then they copied android notifications. And consumers benefited. The fact that we are even having this discussion is nauseating. It's painfully obvious what the outcome should be in terms of what's best for consumers. A rich ecosystem which combines copying with innovation.

... a rich ecosystem which combines copying with innovation and with less money pointlessly wasted on lawyers.

How does a shameless "knock-off" hurt consumers? I own a knock-off Rolex and I enjoy it just fine.

It can hurt you if you were conned into paying a Rolex-level price, and/or thought you were buying an actual Rolex. And maybe you weren't, but I imagine plenty of people are.

I think this (intentionally or not) points out some of why people want Apple to beat Samsung. Not just win, but beat Samsung. It ties in precisely with what the grandparent is saying.

People want to choose sides and, for whatever god-forsaken reason, there are still people who haven't used it since 2.0 convinced that Android is massively inferior, and thus they see this as Apple beating a knock-off.

But it's not, and anyone whose seen Samsung's sales figures knows that.

I agree.

And I think another issue here is that it isn't the case that Samsung attempts to con people into thinking they're buying an Apple device. Even if you get up in arms saying that Samsung/Android copied certain features from Apple, it would an entirely separate can of worms if people regularly bought Samsung devices, thinking they were buying an Apple one.

> or thought you were buying an actual Rolex

He said Knock-off, not counterfeit. A knock-off looks like the original but does not falsely advertise itself as actually being the original.

I guess this is just semantics, but look where this redirects to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knock-off

"Counterfeit consumer goods, commonly called knock-offs, are counterfeit or imitation products offered for sale."

I've seen that too, but it's sloppy writing.

Knock-off: A copy, but doesn't use the name of the original.

Counterfeit: A copy, that uses the name of the original.

Fake: Doesn't work properly, or is copied only partly (for example using brass instead of gold), but claims to be original.

Imitation: Uses cheaper materials, but is upfront about it.

There are two attributes: Deception and Accuracy. Each combination of those two gets a name.

If you value the status symbol of a Rolex (not I - I think they are tacky and ugly - sorry) fakes diminish that both for the producer and consumer. As another said, they also introduce the chance of fraud by intention or mistake.

That said, I think overall fakes provide excellent advertising for the real thing and probably increase profits. Anything widely faked implies the real thing must be valuable.

Fakes are only a problem if they're falsely advertised. If something says "Rolex" but it is not, then that's a major problem. This is why trademark laws exist. But if something looks like a Rolex but says something other than "Rolex" on it, that's fine.

Samsung has never done anything remotely like appropriating Apple's trademarks, so it's all rather silly. There's huge difference between a knock-off and an outright fake.

What is knock-off to you? A similar product manufactured for less or an inferior counterfeit indistinguishable from the genuine article by naive consumers? The latter was and is still a genuine problem; what is wrong with learning from others' successes? It will always happen to some extent and it's better for consumers if it happens as much as possible.

I agree with you re: "cheering" a side, but I don't agreew ith your broad conclusion that Samsung is innovating through copying. Here's my counter for this entire argument: There's no reason to copy certain things: http://fatmixx.com/2010/12/07/samsungs-galaxy-tab-has-a-fami...

I also don't agree that Samsung "improved" upon Apple's work, at least not for the devices Apple is suing for. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Note is not one of those devices.

Samsung is in a different category of copying from what you're describing, IMHO. That's why I'm OK with Apple suing them. I don't know if I like that Apple is suing them, but I'm not going to condemn them for it.

If Samsung didn't copy Apple, the best selling phone in the market would be worse.

A worse phone would still be the best selling?

Obviously if the current best-selling phone was worse then it would not be the best-selling phone. I believe that his point is that without innovating (copying if you will) it probably wouldn't exist as it is today, or if at all, which would be a loss for the consumer.

You could interpret that a few different ways, but I read it as either "the current best selling phone (iPhone?) would be worse (and not necessarily best selling) if Samsung did not copy Apple" or "the best selling phone if Samsung did not copy Apple would be worse than the best selling phone when Samsung did copy Apple."

Yes. Super cars are not best selling cars.

I cannot quite follow that logic. The way I read it, the argument is "Yes, we keep stealing the things you build, but hey, look how good you have become at building new things! Even better: the world gets better from it. You have no reason to complain"

Should one really cheer one side because it is in one's best interest?

Samsung copied a lot of stuff from Apple and improved them to levels Apple had never gone to before.

Could you elaborate? You linked to a reasonably long review. What parts of that review are you trying to refer to? I ask because this is the first time I've ever heard this claim.

I agree with @vibrunazo, we have to think in term of consumer benefit point of view. competition is good thing, improving existing product segment or competitive product is perfect business model. there were smart phone before iphone, tablet before ipad, pc before imac, settop_box before apple_tv etc,,, xwindows before macos,, Apple improved existing competitive products, as Samsung did. Android is improvement over SideKick, used linux which is already existing technology and Dalvik on Java etc... wheel to automoble to air plain to spaceship? :) you got the point. it's all about reusing or leveraging existing technology for benefit of consumer needs - incremental innovation!

I'm not in disagreement and don't want to split hairs, but for posterity:

xwindows before macos

Actually, no. MacOS predates X by a few months. X Window System was introduced on June 19th, 1984 [1], while MacOS was released with the Macintosh on January 24th, 1984 [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System#Introduction [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS

@yesbabyyes you are right, I meant to say XPARC :)

"it sounds like a perfectly functioning competitive market."

This "anthropic principle" for technology cuts both ways. The current market was made with current patent/trade dress law where people who copy too close are sometimes punished. You can't on the one side extoll it's wonders and on the other side say let's toss this whole side of it out and assume we'd see the same capital investments in the counterfactual.

Progress is not a linear measure. Patents can help to keep hardware vendors away from converging towards the same design, which would be bad for product variety.