Comment by Dah00n
5 years ago
You are blurring the lines now though so we end up with a discussion of where the red line is at. Intellectual property laws are national,so if a South Korean company copy the design of the iPhone they aren't breaking any US IP law (as of course you cannot break a US law outside the US as a non-US citizen). So novel, recent, and specific doesn't really matter unless we are lawyers. But it still gets HN'ers up in arms.
Would very many HN'ers get up in arms about someone copying an iphone? It's not like apple needs more profit.
I guess the only reply I can really give you would be my opinion. So here it is: In my opinion most HN'ers would be up in arms if it were, say, a Chinese company doing something that might possibly maybe be kinda a copy of a design. Though I doubt we would see any arms if it were one of the hundreds of situation where Apple have copied features or design elements. So in short: If a big US company does it it's mostly okay on HN but if a Chinese (or Russian) company does the same it is a bad bad no no. In my opinion.
Not a popular opinion on a mostly US site, I know, but as you can likely guess I'm not American (or Chinese or Russian for that matter).