Neither Apple, nor Samsung or Google invented patents. It's a government's creation made before they came to the scene. Once you build a company in a framework of patents and police enforcing them (by threatening to take your property by force), you have to play by the rules. And the rules are: grab first to protect yourself against others. In absence of brutal enforcement, companies would have to find peaceful ways to agree on "merchant's code" (which was always happening in history where the state did not intervene too much). E.g. Apple could come to a voluntary agreement with BestBuy that they won't sell "copycat" products, or Apple wouldn't sell iPhones there. And everyone would try to find a balance where certain business practices are acceptable or not. And ultimately customers would judge if the companies serve them well enough. But when government introduces a paperwork for violence, then business gets ugly.