[ChuckMcM]

Actually it sounds silly to me. Kind of like forcing a bully to stand up in class and say "Billy is not a poopy-face."

The only good thing coming out of this whole patent-a-geddon period is real attention to how broken the system is.

[Steko]

"Kind of like forcing a bully to stand up in class and say "Billy is not a poopy-face.""

The problem with this analogy is that no one serious for a second has ever doubted that Samsung copied the ipad, the court has simply ruled the iPad design is too generic to make it a protected design. That tablets are like refrigerators and car and airplane shapes - fair game for copying.

[ChuckMcM]

And the problem with your problem to my analogy is that if the court actually felt that way (that the tablets are fair game for copying because they are so generic) they would have simply invalidated with prejudice Apple's design patent(s) in the UK telling Apple to pay Samsung's court costs and legal fees and writing an opinion to that effect. Samsung could then take that (and the money they got back) and pursue similar sorts of decisions in other venues.

[Steko]

It's not a general patent on tablet shapes it's a registered design which covers the actual product itself. Which seems like a better system as outright product pirates will clearly run afoul wheras category copying the general shape etc. is allowed.

[FireBeyond]

Well, they may not have had to do it, if Apple had not jumped at the chance (went the ruling was only tentative) to make a pro-active strike telling retailers they were not to sell the Tab. Why should they not then have to say otherwise?