The Surprises In the Latest Apple V. Samsung Court Documents 257
Nerdfest writes "The lawyers behind the upcoming Apple v. Samsung trial have been hard at work filing docket after docket as their court battle looms closer, and many of those dockets have just been released to the public. We're now seeing a lot of previously secret information about the early days of iPhone and iPad R&D, and what's happened behind closed doors at both Apple and Samsung. Surprises include the iPhone design being 'inspired' by Sony product ideas, and that Samsung was warned that it was copying Apple."
Re:More interesting news in the trial... (Score:4, Informative)
I thought the patents in question had actually been exposed because of the mistakes Microsoft made during the B&N extortion (and were extremely weak, unlikely to survive any patent re-evaluation).
Dockets vs. Briefs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Surprises? (Score:5, Informative)
The mock-ups were based on the design description from Sony, and are quite similar to the design patent awarded to Apple.
Re:Surprises? (Score:5, Informative)
Not really a surprise if you read the Samsung filing. Apple didn't copy a design that they saw from Sony. An interview with a Sony designer described a concept for a phone that fit in the hand, had rounded corners, and a lack of buttons on the front of the device. Based on this, an Apple designer created a concept design of what this Sony phone would look like. Just to be clear - the screenshots that people will be posting links to in comments during the coming months are screen shots created by Apple. These are not designs that Sony created, although many posters will have that misunderstanding.
It will be very tempting for people to make posts saying "how can Apple sue Samsung for rounded corners when they stole the idea from Sony.". These comments will be modded highly, as there is a common misconception on slashdot that Apple has sued Samsung for rounded corners. Rather, Apple has sued Samsung for combining so many visual and behavioral elements from the iPhone and iPad that they have obviously ripped off the design. Any one of these elements in isolation does not infringe on the design, it is the sum of so many similarities. So many similarities, in fact, that Google actually demanded that Samsung alter their design.
Re:Surprises? (Score:5, Informative)
3. The fact that the iPhone design was lifted from another product design seen by Apple's team isn't a surprise, it's how all companies work.
They didn't see it. Apple *read* (in an interview) about a prototype Sony was working on and then did a mock-up based on the description. Sort of a "What would Sony do?" or "How would Sony do it?"
Cant find an accurate date on these SONY phones (range 2006 to 2010), but the iPhone 4 looks extremely close to these.
http://www.cellphonebeat.com/sony-ericssons-cybershot-concept-phone.html [cellphonebeat.com]
http://moblog.net/view/273678/new-sony-ericsson-concept-phone [moblog.net]
And multiple phones in these pages (plus/minus a few pages)
http://www.concept-phones.com/tag/sony-ericsson-concept-phone/page/6/ [concept-phones.com]
It does not matter whether SONY actually released the particular product in the market or not. The bottom line is Apple's claim that they have come up with an "entirely original" idea that never existed before does not hold water. If anyone is going to design a new touch screen only phone / tablet, there is not much one can do. They cant Patent a rounded rectangle and assert it to prevent competition in the market and escape the microscopic examination of others.
Apple keeps parading the image of before / after iPhone cellphones, where it claims that all cellphones before iPhone were flip / qwerty and candybar and touchscreens did not exist at all (which is a lie). There were many PDA phones before the first ever iPhone in 2007. Even without the iPhone touchscreen phones would have come in the market.
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_p910-846.php [gsmarena.com] (one cant argue that size of this phone would have never shrunk with time and with advances in technology)
Re:Apple Copies (Score:4, Informative)
I never called it the greatest innovation ever. I merely said Apple used ideas from Xerox; however, the Xerox concept was not complete. It was a prototype. Apple actually implemented a working product.
Then in another post it is suggested that Apple didn't copy Xerox because Xerox didn't have overlapping windows.
And you missed the entire point. If you a using a GUI instead of a command line, things like overlapping windows and drag and drop are essential. Apple implemented these things in a shipping product. Xerox as a concept did not.
Re:Surprises? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh no, because we're talking about Sony here. Remember Betamax? Memory stick? Minidisc? Rootkits?
Actually, I thought we were talking about Sony Ericsson, not Sony.
Sony does own Sony Ericsson right now, but that wasn't the case at the time.