[berntb]

There must be some form of intellectual protection for books, painters and user interfaces.

Every manufacturer had failed for many years to build something really good -- and the ones without internal problems (Nokia, Microsoft) copied Apple's ideas to compete. So ideas aren't "worthless".

The ones doing the copying might end up eating Apple's lunch.

You can make an argument for that real innovation (not moving libraries from IE into the operating system) should have some form of protection.

(-: I'm doing a Devil's advocate here, thanks for the down votes, people... :-)

[bergie]

Again, iPhone is a great example on how execution matters. It was introduced in 2007, and only now other companies are starting to catch up.

Not having a monopoly means Apple also has to keep improving their stuff.