My view of Apple-Samsung summarized pretty well in the Financial Times. Just bear in mind that companies that build great products generally find that more profitable to compete in the market rather than in court.

What is even more interesting is that the jurors had pretty well decided the case the second day, when internal Samsung e-mails indicated that Samsung had COPIED (that's correct, the copying that NEVER happens) Apple's technology. I guess those who can, innovate. Those who can't, copy someone else's technology.

Just what makes you think that Apple is headed to the scrap heap of history?

Samsung is one of the top two or three patenting companies in the United States. They have sued multiple companies for patent infringement. I am not sure of their win/loss ratio, but they are unafraid of suing others for infringement. Of course, this time they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, willfully infringing Apple's patents. Naughty, naughty.

I see Apple's path to the "scrapheap of history" is going the long route. Apple's share price hit a record high today and orders for the iPhone 5 have established a couple of records. The government estimates that that the iPhone 5 will have a measurable effect on GDP. Not too bad for a company that is heading for the "scrapheap of history."

I seem to recall that the poster predicted that Italy's pharmaceutical industry was going to collapse after the introduction of patents in 1978. I seem to recall that when patents were introduced, Italy ranked 5th in world production of pharmaceuticals and 7th in terms of pharmaceutical exports. Well, it has been 34 years since the introduction of patents in Italy. Surely there are indications of the collapse of the Italian pharmaceutical industry by now.

The most recent figures indicate that Italy now ranks 7th in world production of pharmaceuticals and 9th in terms of exports. The Italian pharmaceutical industry has been growing at healthy rate over the last several years, and the Italian pharmaceutical industry has been taking market share from the top five producers.

I guess predictions with respect to intellectual property are tough to make.