It's interesting to see the reasoning for each case, but it still strikes me as fundamentally arbitrary. The problem, of course, is that the rulings themselves are trying to capture a fundamentally arbitrary underlying idea: "does this rip that off?". If you asked 100 people, you'd get 100 lines drawn in different places.<p>Given that, the logic seems to do a good job most of the time. But, at its heart, its a silly question to ask. This quote really throws it into sharp relief (although I'm sure the full decision had more supporting detail):<p>> <i>In Triple Town, the antagonist is a bear. In Yeti Town, the antagonist is a yeti… bears and yetis are both wild creatures.</i><p>Well.<p>To me, it just goes to show how very important ideas, perhaps core to our society, can be very poorly defined once you take a close look. That's at least a bit disturbing!