Now remove a side, and you end up with a tablet. One side of the tablet naturally has to be a screen. Not round, not oval, not triangular or star shape. It has to be square or rectangled. That’s it. There’s no other obvious functional form choice. Now, this leaves us with the back which is also limited. A tablet is a tablet. No matter what someone tries to do with this basic shape, all will look similar just like the laptop scenerio. If the shape was dramatically changed, it would no longer be a tablet. One must assume and resort to close up interaction to see the dissimilarities just like for rubber tires or washers and dryers etc. It is what it is.

Apple’s claim of “Blatantly Copying” is childish playground language that should serves no purpose in a courtroom. Infringing on patents or intellectual property is far more admissible legal language and even that can’t be used for obvious common designs. Apple created a popular “Tablet” category. They need to expect that others will intoduce “Similar” tablets to satisfy their consumer base. Just like Apple had to change up their original laptop design to match other’s or die. Does Apple not remember this?

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/samsung-apple.pdf

If however that is to much work here is a brief (and possibly flawed) summary. Please excuse any mistakes ip law is not my subject.

The community design in question was filed in 2004. It does not conform exactly to the ipad design (nor would you expect it too give its filing date) and apple said during the case that the ipad was not a concrete example of the design. This ruling was not concerned with the validity of the community design but whether the said design had been infringed. Nor should such a design be considered a “patent” design protection is there to primarily to defend against counterfeiting and only offers limited protection if products are distinguishable by an informed user (note: that is not to say it offers no protection only that such protection is significantly narrowed). This process is primarily to defend the aesthetic’s of a product not the function that a product designer seeks to enable.

Then each of the features relied upon on by Apple were assessed. It was agreed that the front of the design was extremely similar to apples registered design but that there was significant presence of similar designs in the design corpus. It was then said that while the fronts were extremely similar and the sides not dissimilar the back of the products where significantly different from the registered design which emphasised minimalist simplicity. The shape of the design that was protected was viewed as not relevant as it was not as thin as the various galaxy tabs (it was calculated it would twice as thick any give screen size).

Apples argument that the front of the design was the key feature was rejected and it was stated that any “informed user” who was aware of the design corpus would see the device as part of a family of devices within which the significant differences in design concerned the rear of the devices. As such the significant difference between the samsung tabs rear detailing and the registered design meant that it did not infringe the community design.

In short he basically said that apple couldn’t claim exclusive design rights to the flat glass front because there was prior art and as such the tabs didn’t infringe. The cool thing was not really relevant at all other than in explaining that informed users can differentiate between the to designs and find Apples more attractive thus implying that apple cannot satisfy the community law requirement for enforcement action. Oh and this wasn’t a patent case or about the ipad design but hey don’t let me spoil all the fun.