The group AlwaysInnovating is a bit peeved with ASUS’s new phone/tablet combo. AlwaysInnovating is a company based out of San Francisco who seems to have a knack for coming up with cool ideas that don’t take off until someone else copies them. The “All-in-One Smart Book” clearly came first, having a youtube video demo over a half a year old, but there was no mention of copyright infringement, so we’ll have to see how this shapes out.

The ASUS Padfone, was made official earlier this morning at Computex, and has been leaking for a few days now, but AlwaysInnovating has had the following video on Youtube for months

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWbCF1ulBPY[/youtube]

If you head over to AlwaysInnovating’s website, you will find displeasure with many other concepts including ASUS’ Eee Pad Transformer and Motorola’s Atrix 4G laptop dock. Showcasing products similar in concept several months to a year older than the versions made by ASUS or Motorola. Once again, the attitude taken is more complaining that they thought of it first, then a threat to sue, but the complain none the less raises a good point.

As hardware manufacturer’s start to present more radical concepts in an attempt to create new market shares, how much of a right will companies have to introduce similar products without being sued? Clearly anyone can build a phone, but if someone else tries to make a phone dockable in a laptop, should Motorola sue them? Should they win? This first round of accusations doesn’t sound like it’s going to result in a lawsuit, but than again this is consumer electronics… Oh well they’ll probably be fine, as long as new products don’t look too much like an iPhone.

[via SlashGear]