Let me put this in hacker terminology: Have you ever looked at someone else's product and said, "Well that's stupid, I could remake it in a week and it would be even better"? But even if that were true, you weren't the one who took the risk and built the damn thing.
Other people here are talking about "vision" and "innovation" and while these are certainly things Apple had in abundance, the bottom line is that Samsung's lack of vision is not what Apple is complaining about. It's all about risk: Apple took a risk, they pioneered a whole metaphor of a smartphone made of a giant touchscreen and little packaged apps. They had to convince a whole legion of consumers that their highly simplified interface was the elegant solution they needed, and that takes a lot of money and a lot of risk. Now Apple wants their day in the sun to last as long as possible, they want as much of the payoff from the risks they took as possible, and they feel entitled to a degree of exclusivity.
The sword cuts both ways - here on HN we've had a number of stories about the 'little guy' who makes a software package (eg cloud music manager), taking the risk, then apple comes along and implements the same thing, destroying the little guy. The little guy takes risk that's big from his point of view - does this mean he's entitled not to be copied by Apple?
And Motorola took a risk on the cell phone in the first place and Rio took a risk (including a make-or-break lawsuit) on the first mp3 player and on and on...
Has Apple been fair to those companies by their own standard?
Other people here are talking about "vision" and "innovation" and while these are certainly things Apple had in abundance, the bottom line is that Samsung's lack of vision is not what Apple is complaining about. It's all about risk: Apple took a risk, they pioneered a whole metaphor of a smartphone made of a giant touchscreen and little packaged apps. They had to convince a whole legion of consumers that their highly simplified interface was the elegant solution they needed, and that takes a lot of money and a lot of risk. Now Apple wants their day in the sun to last as long as possible, they want as much of the payoff from the risks they took as possible, and they feel entitled to a degree of exclusivity.