Samsung Lawyer Fails To Differentiate iPad and Galaxy Tab In Court 495
Several readers sent in a story that's sure to be embarrassing for Samsung. The company has been involved in a drawn-out patent dispute with Apple over similarities between the Galaxy Tab and the iPad. Today, during a court session, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh held up both objects and asked one of Samsung's attorneys whether she could identify which was which. The attorney replied, "Not at this distance, your honor." The distance was roughly 10 feet. The judge then quizzed the rest of Samsung's lawyers. After a brief hesitation, one of them was able to correctly identify the Galaxy Tab.
Idiot judge wants to be like the ones on TV (Score:5, Informative)
As others have pointed out, that's a terrible test. I can't tell apart a pair of toasters or TVs or refrigerators unless the brand logo is visible. That doesn't mean they're all infringing, it just means that form follows function. But this judge wanted a bad ass moment like what you'd see on Law and Order.
Re:Big whoop (Score:4, Informative)
Copied Apple's design?
The ill-fated CrunchPad and JooJoo Pad look nearly identical, black rectangle, rounded corners, etc. Both long before the iPad.
Let's not forget the equally ill-fated HP Slate which looks like a CruchPad or JooJoo tablet -- which we saw at CES 2010 a couple weeks before the iPad made an appearance.
Here's a picture for you: http://www.2imgs.com/6c941c36e5 [2imgs.com]
Are you still sure that they copied Apple? Did they steal a time-machine as well?
Re:Not allowed to look closely? (Score:3, Informative)
I have both a Tab and an iPad and they are hard to tell apart sometimes. I can think of a couple of times where I've reached for one thinking it was the other.
They are pretty simliar, even at distances closer than 10 feet.
Pictures (Score:5, Informative)
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-1-Hardware-Design.html [peanutbuttereggdirt.com]
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-2-Interface-Icons.html [peanutbuttereggdirt.com]
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-3-Package-Design.html [peanutbuttereggdirt.com]
Apple's "design patent" is not about any single property (like the famous "rounded rectangle") but about the combination of all of these.
Re:Can't differentiate between the two? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, speaking as an owner of a Tab, he sorta has a point. The odds are pretty good that when you press the power button the word 'Samsung' will fill the screen... because it just rebooted.
Re:Good Times. (Score:4, Informative)
First-to-file doesn't remove the elimination by prior art.
A person shall be entitled to a patent unlessâ"
(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or
(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date[3] of the claimed invention.
Re:Can't differentiate between the two? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it really does depend on the perspective of the reader. Here, I'll translate the joke to you from the point of view of either an iFan or just anybody that uses an iPad:
"You can tell that webserver runs Linux because it isn't working!"
See? There is a group of people that'd find that funny, but there' d also be a group of people, not necessarily limited to fanboys, scratching their heads and wondering how it got modded up.
Re:Not allowed to look closely? (Score:5, Informative)
If you took ANY pre-iPad tablet and tried to tell the difference, it would be simple.
Any pre-iPad tablet? Nonsense!
http://www.2imgs.com/6c941c36e5 [2imgs.com]
Take a look at these three pre-iPad tablets: JooJoo, HP Slate and CrunchPad. They look like iPad "clones" to me. It's astonishing that they were displayed before the iPad was announced. They must have a time machine that can steal Apples designs from the future!
Re:Can't differentiate between the two? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good Times. (Score:3, Informative)
Demonstrating the similarity of the units is just one part of a larger pattern of behavior Apple is trying to show. Their claim is that Samsung violated both regular old hardware patents and design patents on a large number of factors including: "rectangles with rounded corners", "black", "anything with a twelve inch diagonal", "tapering edges to make things seem thinner", "icons", "envelope shaped icons representing mail", "those envelopes being red"
That's just part of the trade dress claims, not even all of them. You missed packaging trade dress: "a rectangular box with minimal metallic silver lettering and a large front-viewpicture of the product prominently on the top surface of the box; a two-piece box wherein the bottom piece is completely nested in the top piece; and use of a tray that cradles products to make them immediately visible upon opening the box."
You also lack specificity as those are summaries you quote, not the actual patents which are much, much more specific. For example, the part about the icons doesn't apply to anything with icons. It applies specifically to a black mobile device with rounded corners with a grid of exactly sixteen icons in a four by four grid with a grey area below it for more icons, as per filings: U.S. Registration No. 3,470,983 , U.S. Registration No. 3,457,218, U.S. Registration No. 3,475,327.
you're also forgetting the long list of icons it looks like Samsung cloned from Apple's device: No. 3,886,196 is the iOS phone app icon:
Say what you will about the other claims but trying to deny the similarity of the icons to Apple's trademarked ones.
I took the liberty of filling in the details for you, lest anyone be misled into thinking Apple's suit is remotely reasonable.
There is a whole crapload more as well and it all adds up somewhat convincingly. Read here [thisismynext.com]. I thought it would be important lest anyone be misled into thinking your post was remotely representative of the actual lawsuit and all the myriad claims of infringement.
Re:Not allowed to look closely? (Score:2, Informative)
They copied the design, logo, and color scheme for icons.
The logo??? How, exactly, does the word "SAMSUNG" look like an apple with a chunk taken out of it?
The logo on the icon, the design of the icon, and the color scheme of the icon. Please read more carefully.
Re:No, it's an obvious rip off (Score:3, Informative)
So, let's back up a bit here. What did 'smartphones' look like before the iPhone? Various screen sizes, clunky thinkness/form factor and a alpha numeric keyboard of some sort. We all know history, iPhone comes along, all touch based and it sets the precedent for things to come. Apple invented that. No one else did, especially not Samsung.
The full-touch design was first introduced by LG, with the LG Prada [wikipedia.org]. So LG invented that. Apple must have copied it.
Then the iPod Touch follows about 8 months after. Note around this time, if you search everywhere on the web, for Samsung's tablets or anyone else's (like Archos, etc) all look like something between a Sony PSP and a Nokia 770. Yes, all rectangle, but just not the Apple glass touchscreen with a black bezel and metal band around the edge.
Archos tablets looked this way [engadget.com] in 2008, two years before Apple introduced the iPad. Apple must have copied it.
Now, let's look at the packaging of a Galaxy Tab. White box, picture of device on it. Gee, where have I seen that? Open it up, same unpacking experience as the iPad/iPhone - device up front, other stuff underneath. Btw, Apple patented their packaging - all the way back in 2007!
Then they copied the Nokia packaging from 2006. My N73 comes in a package with device up front - with a nice "here's your N73" writing - and other stuff underneath.
search around the web a few weeks ago for the picture of the Samsung store. Look hard - pictures of Apple's app store and Safari icons on the wall. That's pretty blatant - even Microsoft doesn't do that
It's a shop-in-a-shop in a small city of Sicily. It's impossible to believe that Apple execs from South Korea have a say over what stickers the sicilian clerks attach to the walls of the shops they run. And even if they did, what would their plan be? Putting a Safari icon, amid hundreds of Android icons, attached on a wall to improve the sales of, say, the Nexus S because of the beauty of the Safari icon?