Samsung Lawyer Fails To Differentiate iPad and Galaxy Tab In Court

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.

Comments

Idiot judge wants to be like the ones on TV

[artor3]

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

[narcc]

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

Are you still sure that they copied Apple? Did they steal a time-machine as well?

Pictures

[joh]

http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-1-Hardware-Design.html
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-2-Interface-Icons.html
http://peanutbuttereggdirt.com/e/custom/Apple-vs-Samsung-3-Package-Design.html

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?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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.

[icebraining]

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:Not allowed to look closely?

[narcc]

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

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?

[interkin3tic]

Indeed. The denial makes me wonder if there really IS a problem with iPads failing to turn on. Wait, could it be that the iOS5 "cool permanent black screen" I'm getting is actually... no, it's definitely a feature, not a bug. Preserves the battery life.

Re:No, it's an obvious rip off

[peppepz]

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. 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 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?