Forgetting the fruity logo emblazoned on Apple products, the Samsung name right on the front of Samsungs or the fact that unless you blindly walk into a shop and just pick something up (in which case, shame on you) you will have an idea of what you want and purchase accordingly, Apple believe you will confuse their products with Samsung despite their admission early in the trial that Apple products are always on a seperate display to non Apple products (which makes it much harder to confuse them with those from other companies).
Of course Apple could be seen as arguing, unintentionally, that the kind of person who buys an Apple product does so based solely on its looks and not on its features, price, etcetera, which would mean that Apple considers it's customers are somewhat stupid and need protecting from themselves by removing any other product that has any similarities.
A large part of Apples attack on Samsung relates to the fact that Apple products are often rectangular in shape, have rounded corners, a centred screen and a speaker grill.
This was highlighted yesterday when Samsung cross examined Apples expert witness on design yesterday. Displaying four different cases of prior art Samsung asked the witness, Peter Bressler, whether these designs that came out before the iphone had a flat screen, a speaker, grille on the front, rounded corners and so on.
Bressler had to admit they were but then argued that it was unfair to only consider the front or back of a device without looking at every side and accused Samsung of being misleading.
Of course the argument that Apple make is that customers see a device from Samsung and think it is really an Apple product, that they then purchase it and this loses Apple money as a result.
In such a situation the front would likely be all the customer really looked at or could see on display in a store but were all possible viewpoints of a product considered Apple would no doubt be in a slightly stickier situation as the Apple logo would pretty quickly give away that, wait a minute, this is an Apple product.
Unfortunately Apples defence team are doing their best to avoid the fact that the design of certain things tend to evolve so that they have a lot of similarities, for example your car probably has four circular wheels, a steering wheel with a horn in the centre, exterior mirrors, airbags at the front and so on just as your television is probably rectangular, flat, thin, dark black or grey with two speakers hidden at the side or bottom of it.
With phones for example it feels nicer using something with rounded corners rather than sharper square edges, you need a speaker at the front to hear who you are talking to, buttons at the side for volume control, a head phone socket at the top etcetera.
These are common sense directions that smartphone designs were already moving in before the iphone was released. Indeed in the picture below you can see a 2006 Samsung design that predates the iphone (meaning it did not copy it because no one had seen the iphone at that time because the iphone was unveiled in 2007).
The gloves were off this week with Samsung highlighting just how much money each Apple expert was being paid to say that Samsungs products were copying those of the fruity giant (for those who are curious Peter Bressler, mentioned earlier, received $75,000) and by spending much of their time grilling Apples experts on the finer points of the design, pointing out a number of significant differences.
Samsung went into often minute detail about the Samsung devices accused of being copies, going so far as to point out that the Infuse 4G for example does not have a bezel but a case and that, were the casing to be considered a bezel it would still not be a copy of the iphones which not only has a distinct bezel but is also much slimmer than the casing / bezel from Samsung.
An interesting point the jury in the trial won't get to know is that Apple also accused Samsungs F700 of copying their look but quickly dropped it from the case when they realised it was in development before the iphone.
Why is that interesting? Because by that action Apple have clearly shown that the F700 looks like an iphone, so much so they wanted to prosecute, but that was in fact designed independently and without copying the iphone. Because of this they can't sue over that particular model, but unfortunately for Samsung they are niot allowed to use this evidence in court against Apple.
After all it would damage Apples claims of Samsung copying them if they had to admit they knew of a Samsung phone with many of its patented design features that predated their own. They couldn't then expect a jury to believe Samsung copied Apples.
But once you see some of the design "features" Apple have patented you begin to see that most modern smartphones can be seen as violating them. Here are some of the more unbelievable design elements at dispute in the current trial:
- rectangular hand held mobile device with rounded edges
- the colour black being used for the front of a device
- use of the colours black, blue, brown, brown-grey, grey-green, green, orange, red, silver, tan, white and yellow as part of the products design (used in display elements such as icons)
- a rectangular box for packaging
- minimal lettering
- front view of the product displayed on top of packaging box
- a two piece box where the top nestles over the bottom
- a tray within the box that cradles the product
- being able to see the product immediately upon opening the box
Apple hit back with a Samsung document from 2007 that praised the iphones in several areas and stated that Samsung needed to compete with the iphone, and that the iphone was now the phone all others were being compared to.
Unfortunately it didn't say Samsung should copy any of the design in any way but that they should build a better product to compete. And that is exactly what the tech industry does, a good product comes out and then others improve upon it. This is the very reason why cars look like cars (with the accelerator, gear stick etc in the same place within the vehicle, having a steering wheel and so on), why laptops look like each other, etcetera.
It remains to be seen who will win the trial but with each side having a set number of hours allotted to them, and with Samsung using a lot of theirs in just cross examining Apple witnesses, they may have to start cutting back on lengthy cross examinations that elicit a few small victories in favour of their own presentation of witnesses which, hopefully, will yield them more significant victories.
(Boxing gloves image used courtesy of Generationbass)
