Windows 8 has its niche.
Copying is one thing, identifying a problem and coming up with a better solution is a whole different ball game.
An innovative product doesn't necessarily have to be a complete new and never before seen revelation.
In Apple's case, the iPhone delivered a completely new user experience, even though touch screens were not new, they bought to the public the best quality multi-touch and gesture supported touch screen on the market.
Most touch screen phones offered were cheap plastic screens and pressure based.
Can you name a single phone that allowed you to intuitively pinch to zoom in on content? Or a full fledged browser? albeit without Flash support. GPS maps was barely supported when the iPhone came out, and nowhere as detailed.
They also released the accompanying software, iOS, which completely blew the competition away and offered the closest to a desktop experience as possible, to the mobile phone.
That, is not copy, that is years of research, design, revisions, and refining, to get to the final product.
tossing it all in one package doesnt give you ownership of the individual ideas. which were pretty much all copies