Coldplay vs Satriani? Crimea vs...?

you are right Satriani is a very technical guitar player and very unique. So if it wasn't ripped off, then someone else who created that just so happened to be as technical and produce the same exactt thing. That just seems highly unlikely to me,

It's not the exact same thing, though. Both the parts in question are based around a pretty basic 4-chord progression. All really simple major and minor chords for the most part (although I think Satriani's throws a suspension in there somewhere, too) with a rhythm and tempo that probably any decent rhythm player would probably go to by default given those chords (incidentally, this rhythm and tempo makes it sound like dance music when used in a certain way, and I'm about to get to that). The Coldplay song uses a slightly different progression. The first chord of it is actually a substitution for the first chord in the progression in the Satriani song. It's a different but similar chord. But the bottom line is, it's not the same chord and to me is evidence that any similarity probably wasn't intentional. The melody in question is really not something that requires the technicality of Joe Satriani's playing to write, especially since Coldplay used it as a vocal melody rather than a guitar melody. The style of the vocal melody is incredibly common in dance music.

On top of that, the melody is actually different, too. They start in the same place, but they don't end anywhere close to each other.

It seems pretty unlikely that Coldplay would intentionally base a song off a couple non-repeated bars of a relatively obscure Joe Satriani song, honestly. Chris Martin has openly admitted taking influence from electronic music. If that song came from anywhere, there's no way that anywhere was Joe Satriani.

Ughhh very technical answer:-). But it was worth to read. BTW, "Viva la vida" is one of the songs of the year. Amazing Brian Eno production, great song etc etc etc