ars technica's Chris Foresman wrote a great item over there titled...

Copycats causing problems for iPhone app developers (Updated)

Many of us have joked about the large number of flashlight, to-do, and, of course, "fart" iPhone apps in the iTunes App Store. For the most part, it seems mostly harmless and even funny to those of us looking from the outside in ("us" meaning non-developers). However, app copycats are a serious matter. And, in fact, the developers of the hit iFart Mobile app took Pull My Finger to court recently...

iFart Mobile takes Pull My Finger to court (JoelComm.com)

The ars technica article points out a number of other interesting copycat issues including copying artwork and icons, paid-apps based on free apps, and free apps based on paid apps. You can find screenshots and descriptions of these app pairs in the article...

- TouchScan vs. Touch Scan Pro
- iCopter vs. Copter Free
- MedCalc vs. Medical Calculator (note that MedCalc is Open Source)

As a coder myself, I can imagine the impact this has on the developers whose app was cloned and distributed under another name.