One story that I’ve been specifically avoiding writing about is the ongoing Apple v. Samsung court debacle. Basically, Apple is accusing Samsung of infringing a multitude of patents, in both the realms of software and hardware. Samsung is doing similar, claiming that Apple has ripped off Samsung and infringed on patents in their email, photo, and music applications. There’s literally a ton of stuff going on here.

First, it’s not hard to see Apple’s point here. Even the most diehard Samsung supporter will have to admit that there’s something just a wee bit familiar about the icons found on the walls of their flagship store. And okay, alright, maybe their voice recording application found on TouchWiz looks just a bit too familiar for my taste. But Apple has recently requested a grand total of $2.45 billion dollars in damages. Billion. With a B.

Samsung spent the vast majority of the trial on the defensive, fighting against allegations that they infringed on Apple’s patents and blatantly copied some Apple. But they’re also claiming that they deserve compensation and royalties from those patents that they claim Apple have infringed , a grand total of $421.8 million from Apple.

Closing statements are coming soon – though not until Apple defends itself against Samsung’s claims of patent infringement. That’ll be coming up shortly, though we expect the same old same old tactics that both companies have used thus far – we didn’t do this, they did do that. My question is this – why in the world is all of this necessary? Don’t both of the two parties see how silly all of this is?

Of course not. Both companies have a lot to gain in winning this – bragging rights, large sums of money, the right to use certain patents, designs, and features without royalties – you know, that sort of thing. It’s just sad that things had to come to this.