more ridiculous than Amazon being granted a patent on one-click purchasing or Apple being granted the patent on rounded corners for its table product. Apple's products are based in simple, yet innovative design principles.  Protecting its unique designs from the competition is crucial to the future success of the company as design is a major product differentiator for the company.  Apple was not the first company to develop a tablet, smartphone or e-reader, but the company has shown that its design ability and skill with developing intuitive user interfaces has helped Apple succeed where others have failed. One other key factor in this situation is that Apple has shown a willingness to sue over perceived patent infringement and another very general patent on a common product (e-readers) could lead to additional lawsuits by Apple against its competitors.  It can be argued that Apple is patenting general design features in order to litigate its weaker competition out of the market.  Apple has also had success in obtaining licensing agreements from competitors perceived to have violated Apple's patents as has happened with HTC on tablets. If the patent office is going to continue to issue design patents on very general designs, then this fits the prior protocol.  However, many people feel that this design is too general to be patented and may generate calls for a change in the way the patent office approaches the issuance of patents. Does this seem reasonable or does the way patents are issued need to be