Today marked the beginning of a trial that is scheduled to run for 3 months, a trial marks the Australian leg of the legal ‘world tour’ that Apple and Samsung are currently on.

After Apple’s initial offensive over the ‘slavish copying’ of its devices by Samsung, the Korean giant has initiated its counter-offensive, shifting the theatre of war to data transmission over 3G. Samsung claims that Apple’s iPhone infringes 3 of its patents. For those of you not sure about the specifics of the patents, we’re talking really meagre stuff… one patent covers allowing phones to upload photos to the internet whilst receiving calls. Samsung claim that Apple refused to pay licensing fees for its technology,whilst Apple are arguing that they were willing to pay, and Samsung refused.

A snapshot of today’s courtroom footage…

Enter Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett. Bennett seems to have been blessed with something humans like to call common sense. Attacking both parties on the first day of the trial, Bennett said:

“Why on earth are these proceedings going ahead?…It’s just ridiculous… A similar dispute between any other two companies would be immediately ordered to mediation… Why shouldn’t I order the parties to mediation?

The case is rather pointless anyway, because whatever the outcome, the losing side will appeal. Hopefully, the tone of this article has alerted you to the fact that I for one am sick of intellectual property warfare, and I know that you are sick  of intellectual property warfare, and I know that you are of me telling you that I am sick of intellectual property warfare. So before we enter into an infinite regression of everyone being sick of everyone else being sick of whatever there is to be sick about, lets just stop talking about it, and hope Apple and Samsung do the same.