Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

Of those only the Prada is close, and even then the similarities are very superficial: http://gizmodo.com/261172/settling-this-iphone-vs-lg-prada-n...

Since it was released so close to the launch of the iPhone that it's not like Apple could have possibly dropped everything and rebuilt their entire design strategy around it. The protracted lawsuit with Samsung showed how Apple had been working on that design for some time and had already settled on a number of key design elements, the "rectangle" being one.

Those are interesting historical artifacts, but none of those had any lasting impact on the market, they were merely historical curiosities that nobody ever copied.

> Just because you are first to adopt something...

No, it doesn't give you an exclusive right per-se, but there's a lot of ways you can make a touch-screen phone short of copying Apple's design millimeter for millimeter like Samsung did.

So long as there's such a thing as a design patent then, legally speaking, yes, you do have the sole right. That's what patents are for. I'm generally not a fan of patents, but you can't argue that they don't exist.

There was incredible variety in the phone space prior to the iPhone, phones came in all shapes and sizes with vendors exploring increasingly implausible formats out of desperation. Post-iPhone they all converged, coincidentally I'm sure, on Apple's design. It's only now we're seeing some divergence from that.

Today we're seeing the same ridiculous convergence with keyboards where everyone plus dog is using the Apple layout. This hurts consumers since there's far little choice than there was before.

There's a huge difference between "copying" meaning "taking a good idea and giving it your own spin and making it even better" (e.g. Android vs iOS) and "copying" meaning "making a shitty knock-off version of a thing that looks almost identical to the other thing superficially", as in all the bargain-priced knock-off phones that are sold using Apple's branding (http://mashable.com/2016/06/17/apple-china-knockoffs/#qO0bF3...). Most companies fall in the middle here, but some skew very close to the bottom.

I use air-quotes on inspired because while it's obvious in hind-sight the way the Braun styling was adapted, distilling the design language of a blender or a pocket calculator made in the 1960s into a cutting edge product launched in the mid 2000s is not exactly a straight-forward exercise.

If you look at the mock-ups people made of the hypothetical and long-rumored "iPod phone" that Apple was working on you'll see how many of the design decisions Apple took were completely unexpected: https://www.engadget.com/2009/12/28/how-early-iphone-predict...

Apple didn't invent everything under the sun, and they didn't even "invent" everything they use. What they do is try hard to come up with a striking, simple design that they know will differentiate their products. They also get very upset when people steal their design without even trying to make it their own.

Notice how Apple's been quiet about the Microsoft Surface device, and even though it directly competes with the iPad, they're still partnering with Microsoft to build Office apps. I think they respect Microsoft here because re-inventing the tablet and making a compelling notebook product of that sort takes a lot of bold engineering.

Apple's appropriation of the keyboard cover (http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/9/9297805/apple-ipad-pro-micr...) is one of those things that's inevitable. I'm not sure what else they could have done here, they were boxed in, so it ends up being 'theft' by some definition of that term. Microsoft doesn't seem to have raised this as an issue, so I'm sure there was some communication here between the two parties to make sure it didn't poison the waters.

You would be surprised. That strategy worked for IBM-PC clones.

> If we didn't care about being there first we wouldn't have patents, and without patents, why would companies bother spending any money on R&D?

Yeah, it does seem like we're on two different sides of the barricade. Patent-related discussions never seem to end once they get going (even more so on HN), but I just wanted to add that I was surprised to read recently that James Watt himself was being criticized during his lifetime for holding patents for too long and for too important an industry.

Can't find the exact quote right now (it doesn't help that the book I read it from was a 500+ page Italian translation of a history of the Industrial Revolution, originally written in French - https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9CEeAAAAIAAJ), the closest that I could find was this, which is a contemporary view on it: https://fee.org/articles/do-patents-encourage-or-hinder-inno...

> By patenting the separate condenser Boulton and Watt, from 1769 to 1800, had almost absolute control on the development of the steam engine. They were able to use the power of their patent and the legal system to frustrate the efforts of engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower to further improve the fuel efficiency of the steam engine. By way of contrast, and fortunately, Trevithick did not patent his equally innovative high-pressure design.

> Ironically, not only did Watt use the patent system as a legal cudgel with which to smash competition, but his own efforts at developing a superior steam engine were hindered by the very same patent system he used to keep competitors at bay. An important limitation of the original Newcomen engine was its inability to deliver a steady rotary motion. The most convenient solution, involving the combined use of the crank and a flywheel, relied on a method patented by James Pickard, which prevented Watt from using it. Watt also made various attempts at efficiently transforming reciprocating into rotary motion, reaching, apparently, the same solution as Pickard. But the existence of a patent forced him to contrive an alternative less-efficient mechanical device, the sun and planet gear. It was only in 1794, after the expiration of Pickard’s patent, that Boulton and Watt adopted the economically and technically superior crank. The impact of the expiration of Watt’s patents on his empire may come as a surprise as well. Far from being driven out of business, Boulton and Watt for many years were able to charge a premium over the price of other steam engine manufacturers.

And I'm pretty sure that our industrial past includes many such cases in which the greater good was sacrificed for the interest of the few, like it happened even in Watt's case.

in the first place. They will eventually sell in the US.