Apple is increasingly acting like a spoiled toddler who doesn't like it when he can't get what he wants.
They really think they invented multitouch, rounded corners, that popularisation = invention, that their inventions are worth $30 per handset while everybody elses are worth $1, and that they occupy a special place in the world that exempts them from rules others must follow. Thus I don't actually see them in the "spoilt toddler" mode, rather more like an autistic adult person behaving rationally in a world that constantly baffles them because they have a different internal model of its rules. And I even see this as possibly essential to their success - you can't create products that defy conventional expectations unless you are slightly crazy - "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that actually do" truly fits. Of course, this doesn't absolve them of anything, now that they occupy such a position of power in the world they need to grow up and live in reality.
[1] Euphemism, use your imagination.
The problem is that people disagree to the extent Apple should be compensated (or their ideas protected). More technology-minded people can see the roots of Apple's devices, and so think it's inevitable and all Apple did was "popularise" it, while others think that Apple's innovations were/are a stroke of genius, and without them we'd be floundering in a world of Windows CE and Symbian for the next decade.
The trouble is, no one's wrong. It's just a difference of opinion. And that's the patent system in a nutshell. People spend so much time arguing Android v. Apple that it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that we're really arguing "how far can a company have a monopoly on an idea? and even if they did invent something, is it fair that they can impede the progress of an entire industry to protect that invention?" Because I can assure you, even if Apple was responsible for every chip and every bit in the iPhone, from concept to execution, people would still want Android, and people would still resent Apple for wanting a monopoly.
So the Braun T3 radio[0] and LE1 speaker[1] are definitely post Apple, right?
[0] https://barryborsboom.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/172_721-ra...
[1] https://barryborsboom.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/mac-speake...
Also, seconding what pbhjpbhj said, design is all that matters in the context of a design patent/registered design.
There is a big difference between being inspired by a design, and blatantly ripping it off.
Indeed. Apple is now famous for both (Inspiration: LE1 speaker->iMac; Ripoff: Swiss Railway clock->iPhone clock). If the iPod design is "inspired by" the T3 radio design, and not a blatant ripoff, then current Samsung phones are definitely not ripoffs of the iPhone design.
Just look at the hatchet job they done to Commodore. Anyone who remembers the mid-80s should remember that they were the driving force behing "Consumer Computing", not the expensive and underpowered Apple machines of the time.