‘Other designs are possible’

By on Sep 12, 2011 at 10:10 AM
Featured September 12, 2011

Apple and Samsung are at odds over patents. You might have read about it. In numerous courts, in numerous states, in numerous countries on numerous continents, the pair continue to file complaint after complaint. Apple says Samsung builds copycat devices that steal design elements from its iPad tablet and iPhone smartphone. Samsung says Apple’s mobile devices violate multiple Samsung patents covering communications standards. And round and round we go.

In the most recent development of note, a German judge on Friday upheld a ruling that will block Samsung’s local unit from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Germany. In her decision, Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hoffman stated, “The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible.” Other designs are possible. The judge continued, “For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks [like the iPad].”

Well that’s just a tough break for Samsung.

There is little question that the physical design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 closely resembles that of Apple’s iPad. Much like the physical design of any given flat panel television resembles that of any other model. Much like the physical design of any given laptop computer resembles that of any other model. Much like the physical design of any given Blu-ray player resembles that of any other model. Much like the physical design of any given ballpoint pen resembles that of any other model.

Designs should be protected, though. Pilot and Bic should clearly be at war over the design of the modern toss-away pen. Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic and every other consumer electronics company that builds televisions should be suing the pants off each other, and of course Apple should get in on the action if it enters the space next year with an “iTV” of its own. In fact, Charmin should be paying the descendants of a sixth-century Chinese man for every roll of toilet paper it sells. And, of course, Apple should pay IBM each time it sells a Mac Pro in a sleek tower.

Speaking of Apple’s decision to forgo the investigation of other possible designs, I wonder how LG feels about the court’s ruling.

I’m no German judge, but the iPhone 4 certainly seems to borrow from the “smooth, simple areas” and “minimal design” seen on the Prada smartphone LG unveiled in 2006. The iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G and the original iPhone resemble LG’s design pretty closely as well, but the iPhone 4 definitely bears the most striking resemblance to this 45-month-old handset. Come to think of it, the current iPod touch is a Prada clone too, and the iPad looks just like an oversized version of LG’s design. And I would wager that the forthcoming iPhone 5 will copy the Prada, too.

Of course physical design is just one aspect of Apple’s numerous complaints against Samsung and other competitors. Apple’s copycat claims extend past physical design to technical patents, and even to overall user experience. But this particular complaint focused on a protected Community design — or, “a design-related intellectual property right registered with an EU agency” according to patent expert Florian Mueller — and Judge Brueckner-Hoffman clearly believed that the physical similarity between these devices was grounds on which to ban the sale of Samsung’s tablet.

Again, designs and innovations need to be protected, but to what extent and at what cost? The current system is not sustainable. As end user pricing is forced downward and margins get tighter, companies like HTC, ViewSonic and Acer will not be able to turn a profit when they have to pay companies like Microsoft every time they sell a phone. Apple and Microsoft might see this as a good thing since less competition means sales of their products will balloon. But Apple’s products copy designs and infringe on patents too, as do Microsoft’s, and every victory these two patent bullies enjoy will open new doors for complaints their competitors will file.

The simple truth is that a system shaped by lawyers may not be the best system for corporations. And it is certainly not the best system for consumers. Things need to change.

In the meantime, sales of the iPhone 4, iPad and iPod touch should be banned immediately the world over. Apple obviously puts a tremendous amount of weight on physical design. So much so that it allegedly tampered with evidence by manipulating photos of Samsung products to make them look more like Apple products. Twice.

The LG Prada set a precedent, and it is quite clear that “other designs are possible.”

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  • http://profiles.google.com/darren.meier Darren Meier

    I don’t really get the fuss, or the fanboy anger over this one. Yes, the German court was right to point out the design similarities between the iPad and the Galaxy Tabs. And yes, obviously the iPhone shares more than a small design lineage with the Prada. However, LG isn’t suing Apple for that… so that part is a bit moot. If LG DID decide to sue Apple for ripping off the Prada’s design, I definitely wouldn’t argue against it, just like I wouldn’t argue against Samsung aping the iPad.

    I just don’t get why Samsung won’t pull out the stops and change the design just slightly to make their products distinct from the iPad. Carbon fiber backs, angular cases, square bezels. Heck, the build quality of these things could be improved (no more cheap plastic, yay!) and they’d avoid Apple’s lawyers. I like my Nexus S, but if Samsung would just take a real page from Apple and improve the build materials (I don’t care about Apple’s design aesthetic) it’d be the perfect phone.

    Ah, well.

  • Anonymous

    I still think some of the Samsung phones look a lot like the iPhone, not so much the tablets due to the aspect ratio, iPad’s 4:3 is obviously different to me. The thing is, trying to sue a competitor over the look of a product, how the do you word it? You’d end up sounding like an anti-competitive jerk that’s how, smooth surface, rounded corners, right?

    Going back to the iPad, the idea of touch tablets was made popular by Apple, it caught everyone by surprise, before the iPad what was everyone making, Netbooks right? So Apple aggressively protects their turf, but they look like jerks doing it. Its definitely tiresome reading about it, that’s for sure.

    And listen, Microsoft had their Surface long before iPad and there were youtube videos about researchers making touch interaction experiences, like playing Warcraft 3 with a multi-touch interface. What Apple did was create their own version of a handheld tablet, it was different from Microsoft’s version of the handheld pen tablet. How many companies and pundits out right said it will flop? But then everyone copied the iPad idea, did the Microsoft pen tablet ever took off?

    Nobody even tried to make an iPad before it came out, even when the iPhone became all the rage, no one thought of making a touch tablet, no one made it, people had to wait for Apple to do it first.

    Did RIM sue others when the BlackBerry was the model of smartphones (this I don’t know), and what about Windows Mobile? Microsoft gets free money nowadays, Apple are such jerks though, they can’t get free money, so all they have are self-righteous frivolous lawsuits like little bit***s.

    And no, I don’t think the iPhone looks like the Prada. HTC or the Nokia phones doesn’t look like the iPhone either, they are similar in a general way, but they are not alike.

  • Anonymous

    Another “controversial” piece written by Epstein.  Give me a break.

  • http://twitter.com/axion101 Lee Davi

    Samsung should change their design just slightly…ok.  Let’s look at GSII’s overall design (european model).

    Similarities:
    A candy bar design, which means rectangular shape, with rounded corners and black borders.  Also, front facing web cam.

    Differences:
    The sides of the iphone are flat with chrome all the way through, while GSII sides are rounded with two toned color (black/grey).  The iphone is a bit thicker compared to GSII.  The front of GSII has a square button with two additional buttons that light up when powered on. Iphone has one round button.  Iphone has all buttons on one side of the phone, GSII has buttons on both sides of the phone.  The back of the iphone is flat smooth, while GSII’s back has a lip at the bottom with a textured back.  The camera on the back of the iphone is in the corner/small, the camera on GSII is in the middle and large.

    Wow. Look at all those differences in design. It’s almost as if, when you look at the details, they are two different phones.  But I know what some are thinking “the front looks the same and people can get confused.”

    But wait, it looks as if the front of the GSII says “SAMSUNG” in all caps at the top.  If you manage to confuse the word “Samsung” with either “Apple” or “iPhone”, you’re an idiot.  Take the short bus. (I shouldn’t have said that.  I don’t want to insult the intelligence of the kids on the short bus.  I’m being serious.)

    FYI you forgot the Netherlands ruling, in which Apple essentially had some of the design patents invalidated due to its minimalist design.  Judge said, form follows function and it’s hard to NOT expect that some phones will look similar to the iphone in some regards.  Don’t know what the Germans were on that day.

  • Anonymous

    iFans will never agree that the design of the iphone 4 (which was deemed as revolutionary) was inspired by an LG prada phone.

  • Andihope

    If Apple fix the crap signal and endless dropped calls on iphone4, and ever get around to allowing consumers a full web browsing experience with flash,on future iphones then maybe Samsung should counter-sue Apple for finally producing a model that f**king works! The change in the notication system is blatent copy of droid. I love Apple’s design, but hate their way of doing business and iOS looks really outta date. They are not great innovators with iphone, other than the first model which was a game changer, they’re just great marketeers. They drip-feed out of date tech, albeit in a pretty design, to people every year and we just keep on buying like idiots. If the next incarnation of the iphone is merely an update of iph4, rather than a complete redesign after a 15 month wait between models, I will not not be buying for sure. I am waiting and hoping this not the case… 

  • Daniel Daly

    well done

  • romy kom

    I have been using both Samsung and Apple products from the SGS and SGS2 to iPhone 4 at the same time. There is no denying Samsung actually copies copiously the physical design of Apple. Beside u think it coincidence that the Samsung Tabs are lunched just after iPads and look fairly similar and for the same kind of purpose?
    I use the android for the free softwares there but i prefer the polished hardware of the iPhone and feels more comfortable buying from their market store (Apple store).

  • Zsolt or

    Hard to believe that tech peole can be so religious about a gadet.
    Open a bit you iEyes, try to let your iBrain freely work …
    A little google to do : Compaq TC 1000…, then tell us, what if Samsung got inspiration form the LG Prada and the TC1000 ?
    Hope this helps…

  • Zsolt or

    Hard to believe that tech peole can be so religious about a gadet.Open a bit you iEyes, try to let your iBrain freely work …A little google to do : Compaq TC 1000…, then tell us, what if Samsung got inspiration form the LG Prada and the TC1000 ?Hope this helps..

  • http://www.alexbe.com Alex Bozinovic

    I don’t know about you guys, but I want a million different devices that require media to be made in a million different formats, don’t you. It would be awesome to not be able to view video, webpages etc the way they’re meant to be because my device doesn’t support a certain resolution, pixel count, etc. That doesn’t frustrate me at all. So please, designers, start making all kinds of crazy screens and sizes. Who needs standards?

  • Anonymous

    this thread is tiring ,in just one way we all know what product we want irregardless of who allows us to buy it…and in my case i will buy what I want…there are ways,I honestly am prety much a windows guy but I have NO PROBLEM with others,I have the samsung galaxy tab 10.1 and like it just fine,I also have the acer windows tablet and much to my and probably a lot of you others I am completely happy with my full blown computing tablet…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MPR3KPSSSXL2ZBPL7OA4V4B62U DanielG

    There was a great article on Gizmodo a couple of weeks ago about how the current line of apple products, all of them not just the iphone, bear a striking resemblance to the Braun stereo systems and television of the 1960.  
    Form mirrors function, of course tablets are going to be designed to be as much screen and as little depth and weight as possible. 

  • Splendored

    If LG was to sue based on this example, they wouldn’t win. There may be some similar geometric cues but it is not similar at all.  If anything, LG should go after Samsung, HTC and Motorola/Google for the design that looks similar down to the controls at the bottom of the handset.

    The major difference that the article writer Zach Epstein fails to see is that Samsung totally resembles an iPhone/iPad is size, design, packaging and the appearance of the icons on screen or GUI.

    • Anonymous

      If you can argue the Galaxy Tablet 10.1 looks like the iPad 2 than you can easily argue the iPhone(s) look like the Prada. 

    • Anonymous

      LG couldn’t sue based on this example because the iPhone design patents predate the Prada design. Plain and simple.
      LG’s head of design made big noises about Apple copying but shut up when some of the Apple sites published Apple patents from a year before Prada was launched.

  • Anonymous

    Samsung VS Apple is like a Republican VS Democrat debate.

    Apple/Liberals resort to name calling and insults and ignore any facts that oppose their viewpoint. Almost trendy quite honestly. They cringe when hard facts are introduced. It’s fun to watch really.

  • Anonymous

    I think you are being too simplistic with your analogies here (even though I don’t quite agree fully with Apple’s case). But the main point is at some time or other in a company’s history, it will infringe another company’s patents or copyright (whether willfully, or otherwise).
    The question is, after they have ‘matured’ sufficiently/somewhat, what do they do going forwards. The sad truth is, with the way the system currently operates, everybody pays. Whether large or small, big sums or little sums, everyone pays. All businesses know this, right from the moment they first incorporate themselves.

    The real to be asked from the current situation is: which company should pay which? Which company refuses to play ball, and how much is fair or extortionate? That’s really all there is to it!

  • GUEST

    It looks like a Samsung Finesse…..
    Samsung steals from EVERYONE!!

  • Robin Ashe

    I’m glad more people are seeing sense. Apple already lost the top spot to Android simply because people wanted something other than Apple. They’re going to continue facing losses in the court of public opinion.

  • fredd0

    why aren’t lawsuits like this going on in the auto industry??? kia and hyundai have been copying designs for years…
     

  • http://www.facebook.com/japultra Jason Nguyen

    After reading through the comments for this article, I’ve realized that there are a lot of idiots here who love to comment through their diluted frame of reference. Let’s decrease the level of ignorance a bit and read the article and look at the pictures the way they were meant to be presented without letting your own prior prejudices clouding your judgment and intelligence (or maybe lack thereof?).

  • Anonymous

    Yea there are over 200 countries in the world but US is the biggest market for smartphones. So who cares about other countries? Btw I live in Taiwan now. This is a US website.

  • btg

    Lol this is the kind of fanboy tripe that BGR passes off for reporting? This was a laughably biased article written by what can only be some kind of anti-Apple fanboy. No one else could muster even 10% of the motivation to write such a long-winded piece of crap…

  • cegardom

    It’s not only the physical form factor what is in discussion. It’s more about the copy of the Samsung Galaxy’s interface (both the phone and the tablet) and, of course, the incredible similarity of the exterior shape. On the other hand, I don’t think the LG Prada had anything to be copied by Apple almost five years later, as by the time it was released, it was just a “touch” cell phone which exterior design, even being rectangular, was quiet far from that of the iPhone 4 we saw more than one year ago. Furthermore, it wasn’t a cell phone with a multitouch interface or even an operating system at least similar to that of Apple’s iPhone, from 1 to 4. So, when you mean “design”, you should mean it as a whole, hardware and software, not just the apparent ressemblance of the exterior shape. That’s what Apple is claiming to Samsung. 

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