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Google Warned Samsung Galaxy Tab Was "Too Similar"
tlhIngan writes "Some interesting news has come out of Apple's filings against Samsung. First, Google warned Samsung that their 'P1' (Galaxy Tab) and 'P3' (Galaxy Tab 10.1) tablets were 'too similar' to the iPad. In addition, Samsung's own Product Design Group note it was 'regrettable' that the Galaxy S 'looks similar' to the iPhone. Finally, how designers at a Samsung-sponsored evaluation noted the Galaxy S 'copied the iPhone too much' and 'innovation is needed.' Of course, Samsung has some ammunition of its own, including how Apple copied Sony's designs. In unrelated news, Judge Grewal has sanctioned Samsung for not preserving emails from automatic deletion, even after litigation has begun."
Again and again and again.... Cant we just move on? Its an electronic tablet its going to be similar cause well its a tablet. I'm sick of this shit anyone else?
There were featureless rounded corner rectangle tablets before the iPad.
There were touchscreen driven grid of icons phone user interfaces before it iPhone.
Apparently the slide to unlock is so obvious that Apple have to publicly apologise for claiming otherwise.
They're similar because it's an obvious idea which had been done before.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
My Samsung 40" television looks exactly like a 40" Sony television. My LG washing machine and dryer looks suspiciously similar to a washing machine and dryer from Kenmore. And my Starbucks coffee tureen is the spitting image of the one I have from Seattle's Best! When you are talking about devices that perform similar tasks, they are going to look alike.
There's only so many ways to build a computer, and when you're trying to stuff as many electronics in a slender LCD screen as you can, it's probably going to look like a plastic slab.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
that's because seatle's best is owned by starbucks. they are a wholesale brand of starbucks
I thought the latest proceedings were regarding the tab 7.7 so would this be relevant in that case? Or are there still suits pending on the 10" tab? I guess I can't keep up any more.
Those bastards! Next thing you know, someone going to start building phones based on Linux!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
for copying the TC1000:
http://pencomputing.com/frames/tpc_compaq.html
- Silver and black
- rounded corners
- screen takes up almost entire front surface
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
It also looks like ones I've seen from Peets, from Jittery Joes, and from McDonalds. My point is that there's only so many ways to make a coffee mug.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Who gives a fuck what Google said or didn't say? How does their opinion matter in a fight between Apple and Samsung?
The whole fucking thing is turning into a farcical mess. I've seen more adult fights in a school playground.
Thing is, although I admit I'm on Samsung's side in this bullshit, I'm not pissed at Apple OR Samsung.
It's the fucking PATENT OFFICE that handed out these patents in the first place that should be lined up against the wall and shot. How the fuck can you patent a rectangular touchscreen that's been (conceptually) in movies for decades? Or a mind-numbingly obvious thing like "swipe to unlock"?
It's not just rounded corners.
As the summary and article state plainly, Samsung made what amounts to a copy of the iPad. If you have difficulty telling the products apart after covering up the brand logos, then they are too similar. It's that simple. From there, it's not a large leap for the original manufacturer to claim the subsequent manufacturer was riding on the firsts success. Hell, didn't that exactly happen in court a few months ago? Samsung's lawyer was asked to tell the court which tablet was which, and he couldn't.
And when that original manufacturer happens to be Apple... well... That's like pissing off someone high on bath salts and PCP, and then crying foul because they start beating the crap out of you and eating your face.
There are SO many ways that Samsung could have differentiated their products, but they chose to make it as similar to the iPad as they thought they could get away with. Other manufacturers havn't had any difficulty doing so. There are tablets in various colours, with textured non-slip backs, varying kinds of frontal designs. There were an almost limitless number of ways Samsung could have avoided this right from there start. But they chose not to. And now they're paying the price.
Relevant:
http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/
foul
Apple products are way over-priced, and Apple's "control freakery" is a constant annoyance.
In terms of features, and performance, Apple often lags behind the competition.
Then there is the distastfulness of Apple's business practices. In this regard, Apple is worse than Microsoft by miles. From Apple's slave labor, to Apple's lack of environmental concerns, to Apple constant litigious scams.
Before that Apple Records (the company that Beatles founded) sues Apple for name and logo similarity and everyone thought it was ridiculous.
I think that tolerance of hypocrisy must be central to the modern organizational man's mindset.
Wacom has been releasing "tablets" long before both the ipad and the galaxy existed, should it start suing too?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
This is all happening because a patent law puts the onus of enforcement on the company or individual who owns the patent. Apple has patents on the way things look as well as the technology itself. So to protect those patents they have to file lawsuits. Samsung's stuff just happens to look too much like Apple's. So to protect those patents that were granted to them, they have to sue. They're not being evil or nasty, they're just protecting their rights under existing patent law. I agree that patent law in this country needs to be revamped, but until it is, this is what you get.
Apart from LG who announced this blatant iPhone ripoff in December 2006, a month before the first iPhone was announced.
And this one looks quite similar too.
So, when can we expect the lawsuit to start flying between Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Kia, etc? take off all the badges and I'd have a tough time telling apart every generic 4-door sedan from the others.
This signature is false.
I think the patent has run out on the coffee tureen by now. However, I can see your point about similar products having a similar design, but Samsung took this to the extreme. Apple hasn't sued Motorola over the the Xoom's appearance because while similar in form factor, it didn't take practically every major design cue from Apple like the Galaxy did.... hell, even the packaging and power brick look the same. If you think that there should be no such thing as design patents, fine, argue that, but it's plain that Samsung copied Apple in this case.
You're not really so much of an apple fanboi that the idea of rounded edges is something you really attribute to apple, are you?
If you look at e clamshell phones, how many look like the razr? One.
How about the candy bar phones? They look similar, but different no manufacturer wants users to confuse their phones with someone elses.
Look at Samsung. They want their stuff to look like Apple's because it helps them sell. Period. In the documents they say as much.
People here freak out when a developer copies another developer's game...but when Samsung and google copy Apple people are like "oh, there's only one way to do it so we have to copy apple."
How fucking lame is that?
Kenmore appliances are just rebranded appliances made by other manufacturers, including LG. That Kenmore washing machine looks like an LG and vice versa because very likely they are the same model with some slight enhancements.
That's like saying that the first guy to ever make a mass market color TV invented color television.
Of course the capacity to do something greatly preceeded the technology to make it into an affordable consumer product.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Personally I think it looks more like a 1993 Apple Newton. In form and function that is, not so much in style. Got to remember it was released in 93, it wasn't possible to make tech as skinny and sleek as an ipad. The 2002 microsoft tablet has a flip screen and keyboard. In form and function it is far closer to a laptop then an ipad.
> Apple hasn't sued Motorola over the the Xoom's appearance
Rewriting history much?
The difference between the examples you mention and the issue being discussed here is that Apple has a broad design patent on the similar products while the products you mention are under no such patent. You can think that such a patent is overly broad, a complete farce of the patent system, or pretty much anything else but it doesn't matter in terms of the law. As another poster pointed out Samsung has clearly used Apple products, which have design patents on their design, as inspiration for their offerings. While I think Samsung should be trying to show how such patents are bunk they are trying to claim that they didn't do this at all which is just not reasonable when you look at their offerings. The problem here lies in the patent system which allows overly broad design patents which can be used to stifle innovation.
Because people look at things. People decide a lot of things based on aesthetics. And because this isn't just about a rectangle with rounded corners as the headlines here would have you believe, there is value in an aesthetic design that guides you using familiar cues and particular design elements.
Designing something that is both functional and aesthetic is not trivial. We see examples of bad design all the time. I can give you an incredibly powerful computer, but it's trivial for me to make the interface so pathological that you can't get anything done. Even if I'm not trying to trip you up, I can definitely make an interface that doesn't let you use the full power of the computer that you're at. When you're talking about interfaces, the form IS the function.
ONE of Apple's features and strengths has long been its design sense. It's an important part of their marketing, and it's an important part of their design in the sense that they believe that they can make a device more usable and inviting with the right effort applied to the creation of the interface.
Is that something patentable? Well, I don't know. But it seems to me that patents are there so you can (temporarily) have a monopoly on a good idea, to encourage people to come up with good ideas and make some money off of them. If Apple's UI and iPad design, TAKEN AS A WHOLE, are a superior functional experience, I think it fits the bill.
But they did.
From TFA: http://allthingsd.com/files/2012/07/samsung_designs.jpg
You'll see there that, prior to the announcement of the iphone, Samsung had produce many bar-touchscreen designs. The iphone is similar to some of them, (since they were first), while some are more obviously just ancestors of the Galaxy S. Models like the Slide and F700 (of which I had one, prior to the announcement of the iphone) very obviously evolved into the Galaxy S.
A great comparison is the car market. In Australia, there are arguments amongst car enthusiasts (see: Bogans) about which is better between the (Ford) Falcon and the (Holden) Commodore. Both 'camps' are just as one-eyed and ranting mad as the Apple vs Samsung camps. (And in both situations, I look at them and think "WTF? It's just a car/phone" and get a completely different brand so that I don't have to be tarred with the same brush. (Hell, I'm using a frickin' SONY atm to avoid those two!
In the late 70s and early 80s, both the Falcon/Fairmont and the Commodore/Calais had the typical 'boxy' look of a 70s car.
Suddenly 1988 came around and both companies took the evolutionary process of gasp Rounding the corners! at the same time, with the 1988 Falcon and Commodore getting the same rounded, streamlined look.
I'm sorry, but while I still have a deep-seated sympathy for Apple from the days when they were the underdog vs MS, in this case they are abusing process and being vexatious over a very logical and common design evolution.
Who the fuck modded this "Insightful?"
Insightful doesn't mean "I agree/I like Apple." There's nothing insightful about a bigoted, biased and factually incorrect statement.
That's the beautiful thing about capitalism and the free market.
The peasantry is in control rather than a few Robber Barons.
With all due respect, you are just flat wrong. Laissez-faire Capitalism puts control primarily in the hands of the people who have the wealth (AKA "capital"). I assume you are referring to the United States. In this country the "peasantry" doesn't have much of a voice because we do not have a real democracy. Some may say we have a Republic but I think it's closer to an Oligarchy at this point. Here the most wealthy 1% control 35.6% of the wealth while the top 10% control 75% of it. The Forbes Top 400 has a combined wealth of $1.37 trillion dollars. That's who is primarily in control not the "peasantry".
We'll make great pets
It also looks like ones I've seen from Peets, from Jittery Joes, and from McDonalds. My point is that there's only so many ways to make a coffee mug.
Among the idiotic things posted here, this is among the more idiotic ones. There are collectors who have thousands of totally different coffee mugs.
Which doesn't really look that similar to the first generation iPhone apart from the fact that it is a rectangular touch screen phone. It doesn't have a curved metal back like the first gen-iPhone, doesn't have similar side buttons, doesn't have a similar front panel design. The side and back appearance of the two phones are night and day different. The experience when turning on and interacting with the device is not similar to the iPhone.
Of course, you're insinuating that Apple scrambled with one month before announcement and redid their entire design to rip off the Prada, which I'm taking from you involves redoing the iPhone to be a touch screen based product. And, of course, this was a blatant copy, but LG never bothered to sue.
Although it is an oft repeated meme on slashdot, Apple did not sue over a curved rectangular design. I know that you've read that here a number of times in highly moderated comments, but that doesn't make it the case. I also know that you've read a number of times that the iPhone was ripped off from the LG Prada, but if you look at front, back, and side profiles, plus screen shots of the GUI, it will be obvious that this wasn't the case.
What Apple sued Samsung for was the fact that the Galaxy lineup copied the iPhone experience as a whole - the appearance of the device beyond a simple front profile, the user interactions, the general feel of screen layouts and icons. Any of these items on their own wouldn't be worth suing over. It is the combination of all of these elements together to create a user experience that is essentially identical to the iPhone that Apple is suing over.
Of course, why wouldn't you make a comment about the iPhone copying the Prada, or Apple suing Samsung over black rounded rectangles? The first visible comment in any story mentioning these items is guaranteed a +5 mod.
Kenmore just rebadges stuff (they're the Sears house brand, it's not like Sears is going to build factories for appliances anywhere.) We have an LG fridge that's been rebadged as a Kenmore for example. That said, your point over all stands ;-)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Perhaps it was something along the lines of "That product is too similar because they are litigious assholes; they will go after anyone who manufactures anything that is vaguely parallelepiped shaped whose corners won't poke your eye out".
So actually if you look at some of the patents that are flying around and being thrown at each other they actually all have been invented in some fashion or other before. I look at Palm. Palm had a phone that had icons that were laid out on the screen and auto arranged. This was one of apples claims against samsung and google. Palm had the 4 icons at the bottom of the touch screen before either of those two clowns did and the Treo was a phone with that feature first. Apple's suit over 'trade dress' is well silly. Yes Samsung is wrong in making it look so similar, but really is anyone that stupid that they would by a product from Samsung and think that it is an Apple ipad? The Samsung devices to not have the Apple logo on them anywhere. Dumb idea on Samsung's part? Yes, but Apple is going after everyone like Apple invented the smartphone and the tablet. Nokia actually had a tablet out for sale before Apple. It had rounded corners and they played with different designs. I just cannot believe Apple is doing what they are doing. They are going after the competition via law suits. This sounds just like Microsoft going after Linux years ago as well as SCO going after Linux years ago. Lots of FUD.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Of course, you're insinuating that Apple scrambled with one month before announcement and redid their entire design to rip off the Prada, which I'm taking from you involves redoing the iPhone to be a touch screen based product. And, of course, this was a blatant copy, but LG never bothered to sue.
Your sarcasm detector must be broken, clearly grandparent is insinuating that there aren't many ways to design a touch screen phone. Which there aren't. So it follows that all touch screen phones look more or less alike.
Seriously, this is BS. How does a 7" device look too similiar to a 10" device?
If it looks the same at 10 inches because of copying the trade dress, shrinking it isn't going to make the problem go away... I can't copy a 0.35 litre Coca-Cola bottle, make 0.2 litre one and claim "it's smaller, it's different!".
Among the idiotic things posted here, this is among the more idiotic ones. There are collectors who have thousands of totally different coffee mugs.
There are also collectors who have thousands of mostly identical coffee mugs with different shit printed on them. Is there a point here somewhere? All the functional ones have certain things in common.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
From your link:
"Images of the device appeared on websites such as Engadget Mobile on December 15, 2006.[3] An official press release showing an image of the device appeared on January 18, 2007.[1]"
LG didn't announce anything until a week after the iPhone announcement. And even when they did ship the thing it was not a smartphone, it wasn't even multitouch. It was a feature phone with a capacitive touchscreen.
Furthermore Samsung didn't even ship their first Android phone until 2009.
all the tablets look like thinner versions of the tablet bill gates presented in 2002. of course it used x86 because everything else was too slow at the time
i like apple, but they took OS X, stripped a lot of unneeded parts out, changed code to run it on ARM CPU's and called it the iphone/ipad
And they sold a fucking shitload of them. You forgot that last part.
So yes, they had the idea before everyone else to do it. Isn't that something?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
clearly grandparent is insinuating that there aren't many ways to design a touch screen phone. Which there aren't.
Well, so far, only Apple has made a smartphone with only one button aside the touchscreen. So there must be more options than you claim there are.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
For clamshell or candybar phones the design elements varied because the shape lent itself to such variance.
For a touchscreen device, if the goal is to have the largest possible screen on the smallest possible device, the natural result will be a rectangle with rounded corners and a very thin bezel. The back and sides can look very different, but the screen itself is going to look very similar.
Of course, you're insinuating that Apple scrambled with one month before announcement and redid their entire design to rip off the Prada, which I'm taking from you involves redoing the iPhone to be a touch screen based product. And, of course, this was a blatant copy, but LG never bothered to sue.
No, he's insinuating that considering the design constraints, the result will be very similar when trying to do a touch device, presenting a similar device from the same time period that arrived to that design through the same process Apple followed. Given that externalities drive the design, the resulting design shouldn't be granted exclusivity with the full backing of the law in detriment of other providers and, ultimately, consumers.
So what? Three manufacturers came up with a similar form factor about the same time. Samsung has just created phones in a similar style. Plagiarism yes but not just of Apple and Apple's ludicrous patent is clearly shown to be the crock it is.
O_O
10 points to you sir (or madam)