Apple sues Samsung

Apple sued Samsung yesterday, the latest in a long line of IP lawsuits against Android device manufacturers. The case is remarkable for several reasons, not least because Samsung is one of Apple’s critical component suppliers: the Korean giant manufactures everything from DRAM and SSDs for MacBook Pros to the A4 and A5 processors in the iPhone, iPod touch, Apple TV, and iPad. That relationship doesn’t seem to have softened Apple’s tone; the company’s complaint bluntly says “Instead

of pursuing independent product development, Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple’s innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design, in violation of Apple’s valuable intellectual property rights.” Oh boy.

Hardware and software trade dress claims

• a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded; 
• the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders; 
• as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width; 
• as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width; 
• a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface; 
• a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and 
• a bottom row of square icons (the “Springboard”) set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed 

This law suit is a bit tricky to understand. You cannot claim a design that has is critical to a function. Basically you can only copy-write a design that is purely artistic and does not have anything to do with function. Apple is claiming that samsung is trying to confuse the buyers into thinking there product is the same as an iphone.

Samsung is claiming that these feature have become industry standard and is crucial to the function of the phone and is not purely a design ripoff.

So what do you think? As for the overall design of a full touch screen i think is industry standard just as all flat screen tv's look basically the same. The only real claim i think they have is about the itunes icon.