Btw, I don't think this "protecting the consumer from being misled" is a good excuse. I know that Apple uses it in courts and basically says that consumers have a hard time distinguishing between its and Samsung's products, but in all honestly, consumers have got to be stupid if they can't see the difference between an Apple and a Samsung product.
Anyway, I don't think either Apple or Samsung are really infringing on eachother's patents. Most of Apple's patents are ridiculous anyway - but the crux of the issue is that there are only certain ways which you can make something. For example, Apple sued HTC for the whole thing where you can tap on a phone number in an e-mail and it brings up a menu as to whether to call them or to save to contacts - things like that are pretty much common sense and I think Apple aren't the first to have created it, they would have just copied it from somewhere else and eventually it spreads to become quite a standard.
Then when Apple sees a threat, they will sue, regardless of the fact that there are so many other phones out there with the same feature that Apple isn't suing because they see no threat.