If Apple wants to claim something of that magnitude they only need to let Samsung submit the evidence in question and demonstrate copying. Apple doesn't think they have a case there, so why do you?

How did you reach the conclusion that Apple doesn't think they have a case?

The iPhone was unveiled in 2007. Even if the designs had leaked before then, it would take many months to develop and market an imitation.

So? The F700 was released in December 2007, "many months" later...

The whole point of the evidence they presented is to demonstrate that Samsung and others had for years been working on and marketing remarkably similar devices with large touchscreens.

That's not being disputed. Apple claims that those designs would have never been successful in the market without the iPhone to copy from because there were a lot of challenges to overcome in order to make them work. Apple even used the Prada, a phone that came out before the iPhone and failed horribly, to demonstrate this. While designing a phone with a touchscreen is trivial, designing a phone with a touchscreen that behaves correctly is not. It was not until the iPhone that everybody finally understood how to properly design touchscreen phones and implement touch-friendly firmwares that don't require stylii for anything.

The Apple narrative is of course that they brought out the iPhone and everybody else copied them with even the devices that came out before the iPhone retroactively became copies (or, as with the F700, quietly dropping it from their accusation when they realized their folly).

They might have dropped it because of the builtin keyboard making it sufficiently different.

I think it's sad that so many fans believe them. Back in 2006 everybody was wondering when Apple would finally release a video iPod, and fans made mockups that looked exactly like the iPhone. http://guides.macrumors.com/Gallery_of_Video_iPod_Mockups

I think it's sad to not actually understand what the issue is.

Back in 2006 this was considered natural design evolution.

Absolutely, but would it have been successful design without Apple setting an example? I guess not. There's a long way between wishful thinking like drawing a few drafts based on an untested concept and actually building a product that works while betting the company in the process.

Some takes direct criticism well, others may not.

How they take it is their problem, not yours. You only have to make sure that the information is delivered correctly.

That's pretty disingenuous given that my Palm Treo had touch and no stylus in 2004. It was Windows Mobile 6.0, then upgraded to 6.5. Apple's advantage is that they had no legacy products or expectations to maintain so they could start over with a clean interface. When other manufacturers saw how clean it was they realized they had to put away their legacy products and move forward and we're all the better for it.

You contradict yourself. First you claim that other vendors had a legacy and thus couldn't change, and then you claim that after Apple there was no reason to not change? What stopped them from innovating like Apple did before Apple did? They didn't even have to bet their companies like Apple did! All they had to do was to create a new product line!

Additionaly, my Palm Treo had rounded corners! I used the screen lock so it didn't make calls. When in call it would go to the dial screen so you woudn't navigate the phone unlike earlier versions when you could find half typed contacts with your ear doing all the work. The built in SIP client was cool as hell too! The proximity sensor was just another method of dealing the same in-call or in-pocket problems which was a nice evolutionary step but hardly ground breaking or non-obvious.

Groundbreaking or not, many vendors struggled to understand how to actually make the proximity sensor work properly even AFTER they had an example to copy from. Most phones would just turn off the screen as soon as they sensed something close: the iPhone requires certain accelerometer data before it disables the screen, meaning holding it very close to your face so you can read something in the sun won't disable the display. It's this kind of detail that creates loyalty -- you don't notice these things while using the devices, but it doesn't take long until you start missing them once you move to another brand because suddenly things don't work as intuitively as you were used to.

I give Apple a lot of credit for shaking up the landscape and producing a polished product but this lawsuit seems ridiculous. When you're dealing with the shape of a calculator, its hard to think the form factor should be patent worthy.

That's because you re looking at design components individually rather than as a whole and thus missing the synergy. Fortunately the Judge gets the point and expressed it to the jury a lot better than I would.

Errr, no, the link you provided demonstrates that it is a public knowledge Samsung knows about the iPhone designs of 2006 now, it doesn't say anything about what Samsung knew in 2006. That's kinda the difference GGGP points out.

You are right, it does not demonstrate that Samsung had knowledge about Apple's designs before the iPhone launched, though that evidence is still refuted by Apple's release of designs from 2005, and Samsung could have guessed what was going on since, by their own admission, a lot of the components on the iPhone are manufactured by them.

"Here are some designs from 2006." is evidence. You raise questions that could affect how that evidence would be understood and treated by jurors, and it is Apple's right to present that evidence to jurors too. But that doesn't make it not evidence. It up to a jury to decide how much credibility to lend it and how it pertains to the charges, but they have to be shown it first.

It's only evidence when the possibility of the fact demonstrating that a belief is true, exists, which it doesn't in this context, for more than one reason, beginning from the Judge having previously ruled against its validity.

Excuse me, but article you link to doesn't say anything like that, only mention of Ive there is "The files contains a snippet of a deposition by former Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori who said that Appleâ(TM)s design chief Jonathan Ive told him to create a phone inspired by Sonyâ(TM)s designs", no mention of Ive publicly disclosing it in 2006 or Nishibori telling this to Samsung in 2006.

You miss the point. I provided that link to demonstrate that it is public knowledge that Samsung knew about the iPhone designs back in 2006, so the claim that I am confusing anything made in the GGP is invalid. I am not confusing anything, Samsung DID know about the iPhone designs back in 2006, and they lost the ability to claim plausible denial about that knowledge once they made it public. TLDR: They fucked themselves up.

You're conflating "Samsung is aware of these 2006 design mockups" and "Samsung was aware of these design mockups in 2006". One of those follows from available evidence, other one doesn't (and probably would entail an industrial espionage investigation).

No, I'm not. Jonathan Ive disclosed that himself in 2006, this is public knowledge, and before you accuse Apple of fabricating evidence, what's quoted there is Samsung's version of the story! Apple's lawyers are having it really easy in this trial, with Samsung shooting themselves in the feet every time they try to argue for their defense.

No it's not. It's about what an iPhone could look like if it had been created by SONY, and it postdates the 2005 design mockups which already resembled the iPhone 4/4S.

For starters it's their fault for missing the deadline. They have no plausible reason to miss a deadline for key evidence like this unless they were quickly creating the evidence (it has already been established that Samsung destroyed evidence even following a court order to retain it, so this wouldn't be too unlikely).

Secondly, that evidence isn't even evidence considering the existence of iPhone designs from 2005 as well as Samsung's demonstration of knowledge of what the iPhone would look like (by accusing Apple of copying SONY using a design from 2006).

Conclusion: there is absolutely no reason to accept that as evidence. The only purpose it would serve would be to confuse the jury and idiots from the public (which they evidently succeeded, otherwise I wouldn't have to reply to this).

1 - Samsung accusing Apple of copying SONY and using an Apple design mockup from 2006, which implies that they already had knowledged of how the iPhone would look like at that point;

2 - Apple filed designs from 2005 which predate both the mockup that Samsung was aware of and Samsung's designs.

They're only not-evidence in the fiction that is the legal world. Nobody's rights are being protected by restricting this evidence; there's no poisoned tree here. There is no logical reason that it shouldn't be considered in the trial.

Yes there is logical reason: Apple already filed evidence demonstrating designs dating back from 2006 thus making TFA's concepts NOT evidence, but if that wasn't bad enough, Samsung actually shot themselves in the feet by claiming that Apple copied SONY and using a pre-iPhone design as evidence, thus demonstrating that they had knowledge of Apple's designs and could have easily copied them. This argument is completely devoid of validity and is only being used to sow confusion.

And the problem is based on old outdated phones. The galaxy 3 is a turd compared to the nexus. Fat honking chunk phone that if you squint looks like a iphone if drawn by salvador dali...

Which Samsung was allowed to profit from. Now they have to be punished.

Someone is going to make some really good designs, designs that are way better than Apple's. That's the benefits we are going to get if Apple wins.

Finally, someone who gets it! Apple's way ins't the only way -- they've shown the world that it's possible to come late and win the game, others take that as example and try to do the same.

I don't really care that much how the trial pans out... But I do care about the fact that it seems like this trial is hurting my choices as a consumer. I like choice. From what I can see Apple is trying reeeeally hard to show that they should own a bunch of really nice UI ideas. Or that a touchscreen filling most of the user facing side of the phone is their idea? Frankly, the whole thing seems ridiculous.

Then you find patents to be ridiculous, in which case it doesn't matter. You can't deny their legal validity based on being ridiculous.

Recently I've been looking at buying an IP67-grade Android phone. AFAIK Apple has no plans to make the iPhone waterproof and dustproof. So if Apple has it's way either I buy a UI-crippled phone, or an iPhone which doesn't fit my requirements?

Nobody's stopping third parties from producing waterproof iPhone covers...

Legislation should exist to benefit society, not to maximize profits for a select few corporate entities.

Form a party, convince the crowds, get elected, change the world.