Apple's suggestions to Samsung to work-around its iPhone and iPad design patents

http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/2/2596527/apple-samsung-design-patent-iphone-ipad-work-around

by acak • 15 years ago

71 82 15 years ago

pavlov2• 15 years ago

As for tablets, Apple identified a similar list of alternative designs available to Samsung:

Overall shape that isn't rectangular, or doesn't have rounded corners. Thick frames rather than a thin rim around the front surface. Front surface that isn't entirely flat. Profiles that aren't thin. Cluttered appearance.

If Apple were a car maker, they would be "suggesting" that their competitors should design cars with non-circular wheels, thick body metal and a non-aerodynamic appearance.

dextorious7• 15 years ago

Because those suggestions amount exactly to that, right?

Go forbid Samsung actually tried "a not entirely flat front surface" for their tablets, right? You know, like the ones used in most of the phones they make. Or that they made it non rectangular. Or added a couple of buttons to the front face, like the Kindle had. Because, Samsung totally values "thin" and "non cluttered appearance" otherwise, right? Because that's how the company rolled pre-iPad.

Or is it because no one can produce anything other than the current iPad/iPhone form viably? So, when Apple redesigns the iPhone/iPad in a couple of years, it would be like they discovered non-circular wheels, right?

pavlov2• 15 years ago

These arguments are paper-thin.

* Tablets are flat because LCDs are flat.

* Tablets are rectangular because LCDs are rectangular.

* Tablets have rounded corners and bezels because it's difficult to manufacture the unit if the screen extends right to the edges.

* Samsung has been touting "slimness" and "world's thinnest" on their phones for almost a decade.

* Samsung has also been doing "non-cluttered" for a long time, e.g. they partnered with Porsche Design back in 2002 for some designs.

* A black front panel and steel rim was common on phones before Apple entered the business. An example from 2006: [1]

The obsession with button counts is sort of understandable, because Apple did pioneer the single-button phone (and they did an amazing job with it). But they're not going to stick with that same design forever. If Apple moves to a buttonless design as has been rumored, should Nokia sue them because the N9 got there first [2]? Of course not.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6233 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N9

danilocampos8• 15 years ago

If Apple were a car maker, they'd be suggesting that it'd be nice if other auto manufacturers didn't exactly mimic their body styles.

There's a difference between overall form factor and the actual design of a product. If Kia started selling a car whose profile was nearly indistinguishable from an Infiniti G37, Nissan would have a legitimate beef. Just as Apple does here, and just as they did when people started ripping off their iMac design, once upon a time:

http://en.akihabaranews.com/20416/legacy-unused/pc/retro-wor...

Would you defend that iMac knockoff?

There are innumerable ways to design anything. Just because Apple is willing to spend the money to figure out the best ones for their brand doesn't mean everyone else gets to lift the design whole.

tedivm• 15 years ago

A tablet is, by definition, a minimalistic device. Concepts like "rounded borders" have been used for quite a bit longer than tablets, and applying a basic design principal should hardly be considered infringing.

No one is going to buy a Samsung device because they think it's an iPad- or even that it looks like an iPad. The difference between the two devises is really about the internals and, much more importantly, the operating system. I've got a ton of Apple devices that I really love, including an iPad, but I really don't see this as anything other than Apple trying to shut competitors out of the market.

alphakappa• 15 years ago

Design variations are possible. Apple changed their design when they went from the iPad 1 to the iPad 2 (http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ipad-2-vs-original-ipad-w...) - The design is different enough for anyone to immediately tell whether the tablet is the iPad 1 or the iPad 2. I'm sure Apple will redesign this in the future and it will be immediately obvious that it's not the iPad 2.

Just as it's possible to tell the difference between a BMW and a Toyota Corolla, it is possible to make the design different enough while working within the constraints of a tablet (flat screen, bezel etc)

magicalist• 15 years ago

That's silly.

There are many ways Samsung could make the galaxy tablet more differentiated from the ipad, but it's far easier to tell the samsung apart from either of the ipads than they from each other. The ipad2 is definitely more refined than the original, but clearly a redesign of that magnitude would not be anywhere close enough to satisfy Apple.

amartya916• 15 years ago

I understand that people on Hacker News detest courtroom bickering and would rather talk about innovation, including design innovation; I think I fall under the same category, however:

a. Samsung's designs are really similar to Apple's designs. Yes, all cars have to have round wheels, but as Nokia has shown (N9?), it is absolutely possible to design a phone with the same level (or more) minimalism without copying the design DNA.

b. Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone. Same with tablets; a Xoom (esp. Xoom2), an Iconia, or a Touchpad will never be confused with an iPad.

In fact, this STEALING (couldn't mince words here) goes much deeper. This was on the internets a few days back: http://www.reddit.com/tb/kr14a

Doesn't this seem like Samsung crossing the line?

exit2• 15 years ago

devil's advocate: if design has practical merits beyond branding then why shouldn't everyone copy verbatim the design elements of successful products? this can still be iteratively innovative.

fpgeek3• 15 years ago

>Look at an HTC phone. There's no way one can mistakenly think that it's an iPhone.

True. If you mistook my G2 for an iPhone I'd say you need needed your eyes checked. Nevertheless, looking at the list from The Verge, I think there's an argument that it violates all but one of them:

- Rectangular with rounded corners (check)

- Centered screen with lateral borders (check)

- Horizontal speaker slot (check)

- Front surface with limited adornment. Well, beyond the elements an iPhone has (speaker slot and trackpad/home button) it has a T-Mobile logo and the 4 lite-up capacative Android buttons. IIRC, this is just like a US Galaxy S2 (the international version, which my wife has, drops the search button). Without the example of the SGS2, I'd say HTC was in the clear here, but...

The only "suggestion" HTC has clearly followed with the G2 is that between the metal bezel and the gray bumper below it, the front surface isn't entirely black.

In other words, the design rights Apple is asserting are astonishingly broad.

idspispopd2• 15 years ago

Your use of a car analogy here couldn't be any better placed. The reason why Germany has such strict laws pertaining to copyright, patents and design is due to the flamboyant duplication of their own motoring industry.

It seems your analogy however is far off, this would be more like copying a vehicle verbatim, but changing the colour and hood ornament.

It was unsurprising that Germany (and various other courts outside of the USA + South Korea) have seen in Apple's favour, See: http://i.imgur.com/TmUj2.jpg (In fact it seems that the USA lawsuit is one of the lesser successful cases for Apple.)

So when you're copying even the docking mechanism, it's clear that intentions went from "flattery" to "duplicate", and perhaps even a little bit of "make it the same so we can cut into their sales", which is just a nice way of saying, "confuse dumb consumers into buying ours."

The foundation of most of these laws revolves around the idea of what an average consumer could reasonably be confused by or mislead to believe. So when not even Samsung's own legal team are able to make a absolute distinction between the two devices you can bet that consumers will be having a similar difficulty. See: http://blog.gsmarena.com/judge-asks-samsung-lawyers-to-tell-...

Also, a casual review of past samsung products also reveal that their design ethos has never approached this look and feel, while the iPad fits along the lines of many of their previous products, both in form but also material choices.

vectorpush• 15 years ago

Ever since Apple revolutionized the black rectangle, everyone wants to capitalize on it. It's pathetic really, can't these companies come up with their own shapes?

miahi• 15 years ago

Can't wait for the star-shaped tablet.

jerrya• 15 years ago

What bothers me about Apple's claims, and I assure you, I have no understanding of how design patents work, is what seems to be good clear prior art, or prior use of these elements in Samsung's own digital photo frames or in the movie 2001, and how little that seems to have been addressed by the courts.

Apple's workarounds seem to indicate that Apple wants some exclusive right to rectangular shapes, rounded corners, thin frames, flat surfaces, thin computers, uncluttered appearances.

Take the last one, Apple wants a design patent (monopoly) on uncluttered appearances.

wmf2• 15 years ago

Even if Apple's industrial design is a revival and not original, by the timing it is clear that Samsung is copying Apple and not 2001. Whether this should matter legally is a matter of debate.

justinschuh• 15 years ago

And here I thought the word "prior" was pretty unambiguous. Perhaps there's some legal definition that clarifies it as some point no more than 2-53 years in the past?

molecule• 15 years ago

As for tablets, Apple identified a similar list of alternative designs available to Samsung: Overall shape that isn't rectangular...

Kubrick's 2001 cited as prior art: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/collectibles/e1e0/

martythemaniak• 15 years ago

Remember folks, Apple are not patent trolls, they just want justice and to be given credit for their innovations, like the rectangle and the rounded corner.

gsivil• 15 years ago

Is this sarcastic?

redthrowaway2• 15 years ago

Clearly.

dextorious7• 15 years ago

Yeah. But also misguide: Apple doesn't object to such trivialities. There are a lot of tablets out there with different designs which they don't challenge at all.

Samsung choose to copy almost everything of Apple's design. Hell, a representative for the company couldn't even tell between an iPad and one of their devices when they were shown to him in court.

nirvana• 15 years ago

There's a difference between design patents and utility patents.

Design patents are what stop you from making and selling your own counterfeit Mercedes or BMW, for instance.

Neither company pretends to own a patent on the wheel, and Apple isn't claiming ownership of rectangles or rounded corners.

tikhonj• 15 years ago

No, trademark laws are what stop you from selling a counterfeit Mercedes or BMW. A design patent would stop you from selling a car that looked vaguely like an existing Mercedes or BMW.

CubicleNinjas2• 15 years ago

The fact is Samsung is obviously mirroring the industrial design success of Apple to cause market confusion. To root for a company like this to succeed is disgusting.

redthrowaway2• 15 years ago

I'm not sure how you can read that article and decide Apple is the reasonable party.

nailer2• 15 years ago

And the Prada phone. And Jil Sander's clothing. And those stoves with entirely flat surfaces rather than pop out heating elements. And anything made by Dieter Rams for Braun.

Perhaps Samsung is following modern design techniques, many of which pre-date Apple, despite being popularized in the computing world by Apple.

pelemele• 15 years ago

If you put money and effort to your R&D, you will try to protect yourself as well.

CubicleNinjas2• 15 years ago

Prada Phone vs iPhone: They have different buttons. They have different bevel. They use different materials. They have completely different UI. They have completely different feature-sets (expansion/connections/cameras/tech stacks). And no copying was possible because they were announced 30 days apart.

Samsung tablets vs iPad: Same buttons. Same bevel. Same material. Mirrored UI. A clear an blatant copy to confuse consumers.

nodata• 15 years ago

Next week: tvs that are square, have sharp corners, and the latest trend: really thick bezels!

Tichy4• 15 years ago

In other words, they just want to claim a general trademark on "it looks good". Apple fanboys will disagree, but I think it is ridiculous and is part of what makes me dislike Apple with a passion.

wmf2• 15 years ago

I think the Nexus S and Nokia N9/Lumia show that you can create something that looks good without looking exactly like an iPhone.

makomk• 15 years ago

I think you'll find that the Nexus S is actually one of the phones that Apple have been suing Samsung over; it really is a case of them trying to kill anything that looks good and could compete with them.

danilocampos8• 15 years ago

I have just the sneaking-est suspicion that maybe you'd find plenty to dislike with passion even absent their protection of very expensive industrial design effort.

Just like they were litigious dicks when this happened, right?

http://en.akihabaranews.com/20416/legacy-unused/pc/retro-wor...

Tichy4• 15 years ago

I don't understand what you are trying to say, sorry.

Mordor• 15 years ago

Why don't they patent the rectangle, the color black and emptiness itself.

blhack• 15 years ago

Why are people stuck in this mindset that Apple invented the tablet?

They didn't. I had a Honeywell tablet way back when, there is a company called hammerhead that makes tablets (http://www.yenra.com/rugged-tablet-pc/rugged-tablet-pc.jpg), panasonic has had the toughbook, etc. etc.

All of these are roughly the shape and size of an iPad. Apple just applied their standard solid-colored plastic design to it.

("GUYS! I have an idea! Instead of /white/ plastic lets...wait for this. Are you sitting down? Guys! Instead of WHITE plastic...what if we used....black plasitc?!?")

Even the iPhone. Palm had something that looked exactly like an iPhone in early 2000s. I remember my dad having one and giving it to me when it "broke". In fact, I think it only had one button on it.

At this point a tablet is as generic a shape as a laptop is. It's rectangular, about the size of a textook, and about a centimeter thick.

Apple: get over yourselves. If you're so /innovative/ then show us. Take more scrollbars off of things or something.

danilocampos8• 15 years ago

> If you're so /innovative/ then show us.

Will this suffice?

http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uplo...

spiffworks• 15 years ago

What is that photo supposed to show? All I see is that the iPad's physical design is as much a derivative of all those that came before as the rest are derivative of the iPad's.

Do you really not see the flaw in your argument or are you just being willfully dissonant?

Tichy4• 15 years ago

Samsung showed a scene from "2001 A Space Odyssee" with a better looking tablet. You can always select some ugly tablets for such a picture.

dextorious7• 15 years ago

"""Why are people stuck in this mindset that Apple invented the tablet?"""

No, people believe something different. That Apple invented the first tablet that ever sold in numbers, worked well and millions of people actually wanted to buy (and did so).

"""All of these are roughly the shape and size of an iPad. Apple just applied their standard solid-colored plastic design to it."""

Yeah, that must be it. That's how one of the most, if not the most, decorated and awarded industrial designer in the world (Jonathan Ives) works. You're taking armchair criticism to a whole other level.

"""Even the iPhone. Palm had something that looked exactly like an iPhone in early 2000s. I remember my dad having one and giving it to me when it "broke". In fact, I think it only had one button on it."""

Yeah. And a stylus. And a totally different UI.

And for some mysterious reason, all the smartphones available on 2006 from other vendors were totally different that those made after the iPhone's introduction.

"""Apple: get over yourselves. If you're so /innovative/ then show us."""

Yeah Apple, show us. You think just

(a) putting a UNIX OS, with a terminal, bash et al, in the desktops of tens of millions of people,

(b) changing the mp3 player industry

(d) entering a totally unknown market to you, capturing 70% of smartphone profits, changing the smartphone industry, and changing the basic design and UI of smartphones afterwards

(e) making a huge tablet market from a tiny niche it was, with competitors after 3 years still selling 1/10 of the devices you do

(f) creating a huge marketplace for 300,000+ extremely powerful online smartphone apps, and being again copied by Google, MS and Nokia in that too, while also getting like 2 billion app sales...

will convince anyone that you are innovating? Come on...

lloeki• 15 years ago

> At this point a tablet is as generic a shape as a laptop is.

Yes it is. Yet countless laptops models throughout the year have shown quite a possibility of variation. Countless touch smartphones from the advent of the iPhone have shown the same for phones too. An Xperia Arc, a Nexus S or a Lumia 800 are very distinct from an iPhone. Even in the tablet space, look at the Xoom, or the Sony S, or the Asus EeePad and EeeSlate, they all are looking significantly different from the iPad. They have an identity of their own. Now you can't honestly tell me that the two tablets shot in the article are not looking strikingly similar (barring for the aspect ratio and the home button position). Even a (theoretically thinned) HP Slate whose exterior design is very close to an iPad has at least rounded corners with a markedly different radius and a slightly wider metal band circling around from full-front, giving it a more robust appearance and a distinct identity.

I concur, there are indeed some constraints that impose a number of choices to the design of a tablet, but there is still some variability available.

77ko• 15 years ago

What would be something if the court on reading Apples ridiculous suggestions took a second look at the very idea of having such broad design patents in the first place.

jsmcgd• 15 years ago

The absurdity of this is breath-taking. Apple tablets look exactly like miniature flat screen TVs. I don't know how they have the gall to claim that the form factor of their tablets is in anyway original or protectable. The Apple design here is the obvious one. There will be aliens on distant worlds designing tablets they they will be thin, flat, have narrow rounded borders and have an uncluttered appearance. I can't believe Samsung could even dream of capitulating.

sirn2• 15 years ago

The original wording[1] doesn't sound that bad as The Verge writeup. iPhone:

> For the iPhone design, alternative smartphone designs include: front surfaces that are not black or clear; front surfaces that are not rectangular, not flat, and without rounded corners; display screens that are more square than rectangular or not rectangular at all; display screens that are not centered on the front surface of the phone and that have substantial lateral borders; speakers openings that are not horizontal slots with rounded ends and that are not centered above the display screens; front surfaces that contain substantial adornment; and phones without bezels at all or very different looking bezels that are not thin, uniform, and with an inwardly sloping profile.

iPad:

> For the D'889 tablet design, alternate tablet computer designs include: overall shapes that are not rectangular with four flat sides or that do not have four rounded corners; front surfaces that are not completely flat or clear and that have substantial adornment; thick frames rather than a thin rim around the front surface; and profiles that are not thin relative to the D'889 or that have a cluttered appearance.

They've also provided some sample phone models that are not covered within this design patent[2], from a quick scan-through they mentioned LG Prada, LG Chocolate and Sharp 825SH.

> Among other differences, the LG Prada has thicker borders to the left and right of the display screen that are noticeably different from the "big screen" look of the D'677 design.

I found this part somewhat interesting:

> in instances where visual elements of a design patent are "purely functional," such visual elements should not be considered a part of the patented design

[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/74556601/Expert-declaration

[2] http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/807407/Apple_Reply_Expert_...

fpp• 15 years ago

It still is almost comical - my best comment on that is an old computer joke from the 1980s (it would be a joke if not so true).

You know, I live in a house that has a door, windows and a roof and one thing is certain - one day Apple is going to sue me for the windows...

bane4• 15 years ago

This is all basically a form factor lawsuit, with Apple making a big arrow pointing to their chief competitor, the one they think can beat them in the marketplace.

It's like Apple suing over all-in-one PCs with handles on top, or laptops with a foldup screen.

phil• 15 years ago

"Cluttered appearance:" priceless.

GHFigs• 15 years ago

Every time this kind of thing comes up I remember what incredible dipshits HN users can be. I forget it sometimes, but it all comes back with a Proustian rush when I see you stumbling over each other to drown any chance of discussion or insight in tediously histrionic recitations of your opinion.

jen_h• 15 years ago

Please, please, can an artist mock up a "Presenting the new Samsung Galaxy X" graphic post haste? Just the mental picture of the proposed redesign was snort-out-loud funny. Sharp corners, front surfaces with substantial adornment, and an off-center, cluttered appearance with wide edges, hoo boy.

gergles• 15 years ago

I'd also like to just drop this off here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/09/samsung-digital-picture-f...

Exactly who is aping who? Make the bezel thinner and take off the logo and it's a completely different design, your honor!

Killah911• 15 years ago

Anyone else think the title is misleading? It's a really loose definition of "suggestions", kind'o like "suggesting" someone go jump off a bridge... So, in the spirit of "suggestion", Samsung could have just gotten rid of the touch screen thing all together and added a fold out keyboard and cd-rom just to be sure not to infringe on Apple's patent. How about circular or triangular screens?

zmmmmm• 15 years ago

I'd have some sympathy for Apple if their design was distinctive in itself, but its only real claim to "distinctiveness" is its minimalist lack of any distinctive features. If we allow a lack of design features and utter minimalism to be considered trade dress then we are in for all sorts of trouble because any generic shape or design becomes infringing and this precedent will ripple through everything.

Thus I think the whole argument about "Samsung could have made theirs more distinctive" is missing the point. Apple can easily make their tablets more distinctive too, and thus gain the protection of trademarks or trade dress.

Apple's suggestions to Samsung to work-around its iPhone and iPad design patents

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