I am not, in any way, proposing that my example or timeline is equivalent to what it going on with Apple vs. Samsung.
Mine is just one example of a real-life situation where someone got royally shafted for not having patent protection. I had major multinational corporation copying my designs, marketing materials, and more. I even had customers asking me if I had gone into a joint venture or licensing agreement with some of these competitors because of how blatant the copying had been. One or two patents would have stopped a lot of this on its tracks. Of course, part of the "business is war" aspect of things is whether or not you have enough of a financial war-chest to engage in litigation.
One of the reasons I did not go and file for a couple of patents was my natural drive, as an engineer, to just want to build it. Second was my stupid idealism at the time. I truly believed that if I just built a better product I'd always be ahead of the pack, even if they attempted to copy my work. I would later learn hard lessons when facing the consequences of these dumb, stupid decisions.
Keep in mind that I have huge problems with the patent system. I have read through hundreds of patents. Most of them are pure unrefined manure. Bullshit patents. And, yes, I felt that some aspects of the patents I was going to file for where bullshit.
I came out of school with this dumb-ass idealistic idea that makes a distinction between true invention and implementation. Engineers solve problems and implement solutions every day. These are not patentable inventions. True inventions are, non-obvious, blah, blah, blah. What a shock was it to discover that the patent office willingly hands off patents for implementation, not invention. Hell, they don't even do that, they are handing you patents for ideas, you know, the shit you are not supposed to be able to patent!
If you read through hundreds of patents and are intimately familiar with both the subject matter as well as the industry to which these patents are relevant it doesn't take long to realize that people are getting patents for napkin ideas as opposed to true realized invention.
And, don't get me started on software patents. I bet that if you were creative enough you could get a patent on the "do" loop, even today.
Boldly armed with all of this baggage and idealistic bullshit I trotted forward and built my product without filing for a single patent. It didn't take long to learn the lesson that was waiting for me around the corner.
Patents, like them or not, have become weapons of the war business can be. I can count with one hand the people I would trust without solid legal paperwork (be it patents or other instruments). I have been shafted by people who singed NDA's and then went out and used what they learned from me to go raise funding and become a competitor.
Again, its' "D" vs "R&D". They must have sounded like geniuses in front of the investors with all the product and market knowledge they stole from me. Thankfully, in that case, they ended-up failing miserably (not before causing me some financial pain) because of the fact that they had no knowledge or insights of their own. You can only go so far without a real connection to what you are doing.
I see this Apple vs. Samsung thing both ways. As I said before, I don't know who's right or wrong and don't have the time to figure it out. We'll see what happens.