People live in a fantasy world if they think you can build something and you won't be copied - regardless if laws exist against it or not. It's just the nature of the business, and it has always been like that. The only solution is to be the one that truly understands his customers, leads the market, and is always one step ahead of his competition, and you will be rewarded for it.

Every single competitor in every single industry is more or less a clone of the "originator" (which probably based his product on something else, too) and then they "copy" each other's features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq5D43qAsVg