I guess I should clarify.

Apple is about to launch a 7 inch design tablet into the market of other 7 inch designed tablets. So, while they are currently suing Samsung or anyone for “copying” an “obvious” design, they ironically enter into another market filled with same type of designs. It’s hypocritical.

You bring up the interesting point of look and feel. However, Design patents for a tablet design over a bottle design is somewhat of a tough sell here as opposed to the perfume example. The bottle or recepticle which houses the product, can achieve far more multiple designs while retaining comfortability due to the nature of design. However, in the end, it is the inner product(Scent) that is the deciding factor for interest. Now, A tablet is far less obtainable for multiple standard “usable” designs from a bottle( at least in conformity for comfortable handheld use). So in order to conform to useable practicality, the tablet becomes a limited embodiment which houses the product. It is up to the product(ios) to work harder to differentiate over the competition. Apple has accentuated their product from others, however, they shouldn’t be able to tell competiton to forego fair standard use of any bottle they put their product in.

I was not pretending to be any of the above other than consumer. A consumer which is potentially poised to be hurt by all this litigation and control by Apple.

Please review my response to Rich. Hopefully it will make a better understanding of where I’m coming from.

I understand what you’re saying, but here’s my bone of contention:

For years, we have been enjoying the employed standard design of laptops. A design I argue cannot be distinquished from a distance. As you get closer, these laptops are more distinguished by branded emblems and very slight moderations of hinged clamshell components and port locations.

In short, there is only so much you can change on a standard design.

Tablets eliminate even more ways to implement distinguishable features. Moveable parts are gone, keyboards are gone etc. I don’t see how much the patents should allow for such an “obvious” common design. It just works. New technology also eliminates the need for most ports and they aren’t included with a tablet design. Placement of these ports now cannot be used to accentuate the differences. Apple may have introduced the first mass marketed tablet, but they are using the system to not only keep Samsung from being similar, they are in essense trying to keep anyone creating a tablet that directly competes. HP Touchpad closely resembled as others. Marketshare didn’t constitute a threat to Apple, so they escape litigation.

As Rich notes this is mostly about “design” patents not “utility” patents. Nerd space seems unable to wrap its head around the former compared to the latter.

Apple also uses a lesser area in trademark law called “trade dress”. For a reference see

http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/tradedress.html