iPhone competitors copying the iPhone features & look/feel - why isn't Apple suing?

[wreckshop]

It doesn't matter if it was successful or not, the fact remains - the product existed long before Apple's did.

With Intellectual Property, all that matters is who did it first. Look at Cisco's iPhone trademark - all they did was shove a sticker on the box of some existing products with the word "iPhone" (that they had already trademarked) and that left Apple having to negotiate to use it.

Being the first doesnt necessarily mean that its patentable. The invention needs to be “novel, non-obvious, and have utility." Some handset manufacturer was first to use touch buttons instead of hard buttons for send/end call functions. But that's hardly novel, or non-obvious.