"I'm sure that if you look at computers before and after the PC you'll see that most companies followed the leader. Probably same with various generations of ca

"I'm sure that if you look at computers before and after the PC you'll see that most companies followed the leader. Probably same with various generations of cars, planes, televisions, toasters, whatever." That's true. And I'm sure we all remember the lawsuits that followed. Like I said, it being reasonable or not is a different issue. Of couse, if you ignore advances made towards "a better way to do things" to avoid being labelled as copying there will be no progress. At the same time you want to make sure there is incentive for them who put in the effort to come up with the "better way to do things" otherwise the competition will simply sit around and copy while those who bear the burden to innovate aren't rewarded. So where to draw the line? That's a difficult question.