
After Apple demanded that Samsung pay $2.5 billion for patent infringement, Samsung retaliated by arguing that its Cupertino rival “could not have sold a single iPhone without the benefit of Samsung’s patented technology.” In a recent brief filed to the courts this week, Samsung points to its more than two decades of cellphone research and accuses Apple of hypocrisy, copying design concepts from Sony. Samsung also points towards evidence from 2006, countering Apple’s suggestions that the original iPhone marked a huge change in the Korean firm’s design approach. According to the Samsung filing:
Apple‘s own internal documents show this. In February 2006, before the claimed iPhone design was conceived of, Apple executive Tony Fadell circulated a news article that contained an interview of a Sony designer to Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive and others. In the article, the Sony designer discussed Sony portable electronic device designs that lacked “excessive ornamentation” such as buttons, fit in the hand, were “square with a screen” and had “corners [which] have been rounded out.

According to the Samsung filing:
In the summer of 2006, Samsung began designing its next generation of mobile phones, based on the market trend of ever-increasing screen size” Samsung continues. “At that time, Samsung‘s designers envisioned a basic design: a simple, rounded rectangular body dominated by a display screen with a single physical button on the face … [as] documents confirm, Samsung independently developed the allegedly copied design features months before Apple had even announced the iPhone. It did not switch its design direction because of the iPhone.
Apple relied heavily on Samsung’s technology to enter the telecommunications space. Samsung supplies the flash memory, main memory, and application processor for the iPhone. Apple also uses patented Samsung technology that it has not paid for. This includes standards-essential technology required for Apple‘s products to interact with products from other manufacturers, and several device features that Samsung developed for use in its products.
Source: AllThingsD, The Wall Street Journal via BGR
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