Apple hasn't legally established trade dress yet. That's what they're trying to get a ruling on in their lawsuits around the world.
As the linked analysis noted, Apple succesfully sued E-Machines and another company for infringing on the Mac's trade-dress back in 2000 - effectvely removing them from the marketplace. This isn't the same thing as suing Microsoft for "look and feel."
As far as the icons go, I think you are being disingenuous by looking ONLY at those differences. It is not necessary to have an
exact copy of a rival's trademark in order to infringe. Again, the standard isn't "an exact copy" - it is more on the line of "was it designed so that people could be confused about the origin." If you look at the list of System App icons provided, it seems pretty clear to me that Samsung made it as close as possible - and certainly in a way that Smartphones from, say, Windows Phone or Blackberry
don't.
The bigger point is this: All of these items will be litigated in court. Apple may prevail on all, some, or none of the claims.
But it is also worth noting that Apple isn't being "the bad guy" here. They have every right to protect, by
legal means, their investment in the iPhone and iPad. Apple paid many millions in salaries to Americans who worked long and hard designing the iPad, its packaging, and the way its software works. I think they - at the very least - have the
right to use our nation's (and that of other countries) legal system in order to protect that investment, and by extension the labor if its employees.
To those of you defending Samsung, try asking yourself a few questions.
How would YOU feel if, after spending thousands of hours and dollars creating say, the perfect Flash website game, one of your rivals simply copied the entire thing, from the way animations worked, to the color of the backgrounds, to the code that ran it? This copyist simply changed a few random elements here and there to give a gloss of respectability to his theft.
Would you think it was wrong for you to go to court to prevent this copying? Would you think you were "inhibiting innovation" (among Flash developers) if you took this guy to court?
Or would you feel that his argument that "Flash websites with dragons existed long before Joe Chump made one" - somehow excused his ripping off 99.5% of the elements that made
your Flash website with dragons unique was somewhat absurd?
Apple has the right to sue Samsung. Its up to the courts to determine whether or not their claims are valid.
