Notch himself said Minecraft is a clone of Infiniminer...I think thats what the game is called.
egh ok that is true but that argument is a bit iffy
because the reason these 'clones' exist is because they're trying to feed off of the wave of success that minecraft-esque titles have had (which obviously was caused by minecraft)
infiniminer is fairly trivial because of this because minecraft, even if it is a clone of a game, is not a clone in that sense
it derived a good bit of its style from it, but it's not how it is purely to be similar enough to attract the same area of consumers
does any of that make sense