Gadgehit.com writes: "Despite winning a high profile patent battle against Samsung in its home territory, Apple has lost a similar lawsuit in a more neutral territory, Japan. Samsung allegedly infringed on Apple’s patents related to the synchronisation of music and video files with servers."
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In america, its who gets to the patent office first regardless of who coined the idea. In Europe and the UK you have to physically prove you invented it using evidence and its approved only after a full case is presented.
i'll grant you that in america once you have and own the patent it is rigorously protected, but the flaws lie in that you can patent things which really you havn't invented, which is wrong and should be amended.
I like that those who invent get the patent, it prevents people from sitting on an idea and then sue those who actually pursue it. But then, that won't matter if the patents laws in Asia and Europe are loose and forgiving. I think I would rather have the U.S rigorous protection and the UK physical invention. That should prevent a lot of BS.
The only thing Iphone really did was push people into Smartphones faster and killed the whole "media phone" idea entirely. However you still had Google interested, and Android has done a lot more to the phone industry as a whole than anything.
I think you take Apple out of question and you just have a slower transition to smartphones, thats it.
(I say that about all the so-called American companies, not just Apple)