Consumers Punished by Intellectual Property Again

Are you looking to by a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Too bad, sales of the device have been banned in the United States because of a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung:

A court has banned sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US while it decides on the firm's patent dispute with Apple.

Apple has claimed that Samsung infringed its design patent and copied the look of its popular device, the iPad.

The Samsung tablet is considered by most analysts as the biggest rival to Apple's iPad.

The ban does not apply to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 II, the tablet's new edition.

This is yet another example of consumers losing because of the patent system. While Apple attempts to extort money from Samsung over a non-scarce resource consumers are unable to purchase Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1. Somebody could probably make a little money (not much mind you, the Tab 10.1 is getting up there in age now) by doing some agorism and selling Tab 10.1s in a "black" market.