on Monday caught up with Christopher Carani, chairman of the American Bar Association’s design rights committee and former chair of the American Intellectual Property Law Association committee on industrial design, to get his take on the Samsung (005930) vs. Apple (AAPL) patent trial. And so far, he says that based on what he’s seen, he thinks Samsung is in serious trouble.
Carani in particular notes that Judge Lucy Koh has remarked that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is “virtually indistinguishable” from the iPad, and says that Samsung has not shown any significant evidence to contradict her assertion.
“Judge Koh appears to be of the mindset that the accused Samsung tablet easily meets the ‘substantially the same’ infringement standard — so much so that the facts lead to one and only one conclusion — infringement,”Carani told InformationWeek.
Carani said that Samsung could save itself if it can produce some significant prior art indicating that Apple’s tablet design isn’t wholly original. However, he says that Samsung didn’t produce its best prior art evidence during the pretrial evidence discovery process, and that Samsung isn’t likely to introduce any persuasive evidence at this time.
“Samsung failed to disclose these [prior art] designs in a timely manner prior to the court’s discovery deadlines,” he said. “We don’t know why they missed the deadlines.”
