There's nothing quite like the irony of trying to shut down your prime competitor and giving their products a big boost in brand awareness instead. It seems that there are two basic ways to compete in this world: make a better product at a better price, or try to shut down your competitors with lawsuits and sell your inferior product at a nice fat mark-up. Well, unfortunately for Apple, they chose the latter. A week ago, we brought you news on how Apple's lawsuit against a Chinese competitor had suffered a setback over the name "iPad" which Apple tried to take off them - the court didn't buy Apple's arguments and the competitor kept the name.

Now, Apple have suffered a much bigger setback in Australia by taking on formidable opponent Samsung, with what appears to be a meritless lawsuit. Samsung had released a competitor product to the iPad, called the Galaxy Tab running Android, which has received good reviews. Apple tried to ban sales of the device, claiming it infringed various patents and look and feel - and it worked. Until Samsung appealed and the ruling was overturned. Oops. Samsung is now delighted with the whole fiasco, as it's given them a huge marketing boost. Samsung Australia's vice president of telecommunications, Tyler McGee said: "At the end of the day the media awareness certainly made the Galaxy Tab 10.1 a household name compared to probably what it would've been based on the investment that we would've put into it from a marketing perspective." Yes, it's probably better to compete by outcompeting your competitor, rather than use dodgy legal tactics to try and stifle them. However, now Apple have turned to a patent troll to do their dirty work for them against various competitors. We can just see Apple going far with this strategy. Is this what Steve Jobs would have wanted?