As a consumer, I couldn't care less. Android makes dropdown notification screen: good feature -> apple steals it -> yay. Apple makes slide to unlock: good feature -> android steals it -> yay. Honestly I'm more frustrated when the don't incorporate good ideas: Win7 & Ubuntu unity have awesome keyboard window management features and when I use OSX I find myself wondering why the hell Apple hasn't stolen these features yet. They are good features, your OS is WORSE for not having them (i.e. it's not just a "design choice" imo, window management/tiling is simply worse on Mac). I wish some pc manufacturer would rip off the MPB as faithfully as possible so I could have a decent linux notebook!
Listen to Steve Jobs v1, steal good ideas! Furthermore, this article only speaks to superficial "features", i.e. the look of the box, so I care even less. Insofar as it hurts consumers by confusing them, it's bad, otherwise I say steal and steal alike.
Assuming consumers are not confused/misled, is there any harm to consumers posed by this sort of copying?
There's a big difference between stealing and outright copying.
Android didn't see iOS and then steal every single of element of it, they looked to it for inspiration and incorporated the parts they liked with their own ideas. Same thing with Apple introducing new features to iOS inspired by Android or WebOS.
If HP had looked at Apple products, and incorporated certain aspects of the design (say, the matte aluminum finish), while adding their own ideas, people would be lauding them for moving things forward. Instead, we have this, which is an outright clone.
I think this is a good thing. I know plenty of people who have bought an iMac because it looks cool, not because it's a Mac running OSX. Now people can have a machine that looks trendy like a Mac, but (I'm assuming) at a lower price, and without the hassle of having to install Windows on bootcamp afterwards (or learn how to use OSX and then complain when they realise it's not Windows).
Apple's patent references the Neonode patent. I don't think patent law works the way you think it does. Neonode's patent 8,095,879 was only granted in January 2012 (filing date Dec 2002.)
See the references on Apple's 8,209,637 patent. It references Neonode's patent 8,095,879.
Listen to Steve Jobs v1, steal good ideas! Furthermore, this article only speaks to superficial "features", i.e. the look of the box, so I care even less. Insofar as it hurts consumers by confusing them, it's bad, otherwise I say steal and steal alike.
Assuming consumers are not confused/misled, is there any harm to consumers posed by this sort of copying?