I think you missed what I was primarily trying to get across. It's not that the way our patent system works is how I think it should work, and in fact I pretty explicitly stated the opposite. My only point is that you can't really begrudge a corporation for using the laws the government gives it (well you can, but it's not very productive). We need patent reform, not Apple reform.
You needn't forget that by doing what they're doing, any other company would lose customers simply because of bad publicity. Apple's expert marketing department is somehow keeping it in-check, but you are right. Technically they CAN do it. That said, it needs to change - both the law and the way Apple is using it, simply because it creates unfair grounds for its competition. I realize that what you're trying to say is that we shouldn't have hard feelings towards Apple since what they're doing is legal, but my point is exactly oposite to it - law isn't always fair and it's up to the consumer to decide what is and what isn't.
First off, Samsung isn't what? Isn't throwing out bushels of lawsuits in order to staunch their competitors like Apple? Because that's what I was saying.
From what you wrote I understood that Samsung wasn't in the financial position to afford petty lawsuit tsunamis, and they are, so that's what I meant.
Samsung is an enormous conglomerate. It is not operated in the same way as a company such as Apple, which is more or less a single-entity. Even the divisions within the corporations that comprise the conglomerate have to bid against outside companies for components. Considering Apple's component purchases represent roughly 10% of Samsung Electronics' operating revenue, it doesn't seem particularly smart to jeopardize that, even if they actually had the ability to do so.
Unlike Apple, Samsung would stay afloat regardless of incredibly bad press - they have customers among the average folk and among the corporate alike - as you said, if one division will do worse, the other will counter-weigh it. They are very much in a position to state demands as much as Apple is, they just have different policies.
Purchasing what one considers an inferior product on the basis that their personal purchasing decision will have a tangible impact on the manufacturer is the opposite of "smart consumerism". No, that's self-righteous idealism.
Purchasing a
factualy inferior product on the basis of false marketing and doing so
againts your own conscience when you know that
its manufacturer works againts the ethics you believe in just because "everybody buys them" is being a
slave of advertisements and keeling over to peer pressure. Being true to what you believe in and buying products that you want to support is perfectly normal, not idealistic. If company XYZ made the best laptops on the planet, far surpassing anything else both specs-wise and price-wise, but they were known for grinding newborn baby seals into a paste to use in their paints, you still probably wouldn't buy their products, just because you don't agree with that kind of practices. Nowadays the focus of attention goes far beyond the product, Urza.