Marco Arment on how the Apple victory really doesn’t break Samsung, Android, or the prospective consumer’s back:
Apple’s claims from this case aren’t very far-reaching. What they won, effectively, is a weapon to use against anyone who copies a narrow set of behaviors, appearances, and packaging designs.
If Samsung wasn’t so blatantly idiotic about copying so much from the iPhone, Apple wouldn’t have won so many of their claims. In fact, Apple lost most of their more generic, less-blatantly-copied iPad claims.
Sober and well-reasoned as always. I think he’s a little generous to call the iPad claims generic; while Apple won on claims 1-3 here, they lost on the laughably broad claim 8 regarding tablet designs. Sure, everyone decided to do slim tablets with no features but a single button and a pane of glass after the iPad, but a patent to that effect is stupidly broad.