I'd bet that had Samsung done an analysis of the iPhone that was evaluating the first-principles and then had a separate team work from those first-principles to design a clean UI they would have been much better off. Really though, having emails and presentations that say "we need to make our phone more like the iPhone" is pretty damning. It seems like they've done a better job recently when they just go and do their own thing.

Yes, but not to this level. This is a guide book to imitating another platform.

>And if so is it a bad faith to do these types of analysis inside your company on your products since it exposes you in court?

No. I'd suggest that Samsung did go over the top with this.

>How has the auto industry get getting along so long without suing each other into the ground?

They haven't. The automotive industry is extremely litigious, it just doesn't get page views, dead-tree or internet.