First off, only a few companies actually MAKE TV's. A lot of brands are rebranded ODM's, so those can't count. But if you look at TV's from different companies (that actually do make the TV's) you'll notice that they are pretty easy to identify. They typically have different shapes and the button placement is different and they all have their own distinct menu system.
True. TVs are just an example. (And I would argue the same, that if really looked at rationally, all of the phones and UI elements in question in most of these cases are easy to identify as well. No one *really* ever gets confused that a Samsung product is really an Apple product any more than anyone really confuses an LG TV for a Samsung one. And there are plenty of other industries where if everyone acted as ridiculous as Apple over minute design details, everyone would sue everyone else and just constantly be in court because , for example, the speedometer in a Lexus supposedly looks just like one in a BMW or whatever. No one else niggles over bullshit like this... YET anyway.)
Apple's actions, taken to their worst extremes (and I don't put it past big companies to take things to their worst extremes) mean that companies -especially small companies without armies of lawyers and bullshit patents they hold- can be severely limited in what they can design and make. You can bet other large companies are watching these proceedings with a keen eye. They can follow the Apple model too: get over-broad patents for ridiculous basic things, and then use them as a bully position to stifle competition and keep everyone else out of their games.
Apple might do well to remember they were once a small startup going up against gigantic corporations themselves. Imagine if others in the computer and electronics industry had bought up trivial over-broad patents to the most mundane of design elements and then used those to ban products Apple made, or keep them from entering new markets beyond computers.
Samsung and Apple can afford to go at each other for billion dollar lawsuits over trivial bullshit. Smaller companies and startups can't- and that's where real innovation often comes from, not from bloated behemoth corporations protecting their business models against competition.
Like I said, I've got a personal stake in Apple in that I own a lot of their stock and frankly its worth a tidy sum. But I'm also a consumer and care more about consumers not being held hostage to giant corporations gaming the patent and legal system to their own ends against the consumer. It stinks. Apple's one company that I always admired because I didn't think they had to cheat to be successful. It's pretty clear they don't seem as confident in that themselves.