Well it would except for the tiny little fact that until Steve jobs was shown a Sony design concept the iPhone was going to be a very different product. According to unredacted documents presented by Samsung Apple executives including Steve Jobs were shown a news article where a Sony designer was talking about designs for “portable electronic devices that lacked buttons and other ‘excessive ornamentation,’ fit in the hand, were ‘square with a screen’ and had ‘corners [which] have been rounded out,” This design changed the design philosophy and inspired the iPhone's final shape and also the claimed patented design.
Now many sites are choosing to focus on the information that Samsung was told they were copying Apple, but in reality, if the testimony of the chief designer Shin Nishbori is accurate then Apple’s original design patent might be called into question since it represented them copying someone else’s idea and concept. Samsung’s chief job here is to get Apple’s design patent thrown out as once that is done Apple has no claim on the design (which many feel they do not anyhow). The comments that Samsung is using a “they did it too defense” is ridiculous, what Samsung is doing is showing that Apple should never have been granted the patent in the first place because they stole someone else’s idea and design.
Apple is also fighting hard to keep information from customer feedback buried. It claims that access to their consumer studies would give their competition the chance to copy them further. We have a feeling there is another reason and Apple just wants to keep their stories to the court consistent. In all honesty I do not think that Apple feels that Apple copied them and I even doubt that Steve Jobs feels that way given his history of borrowing other people’s ideas. However, Jobs and Apple ARE very good at creating a believable story and one that people like to cling to. In the real world one of Apple’s own employees remarked;
“I don‘t know how many things we can come up with that you can legitimately claim we did first. Certainly we have the first successful versions of many features, but that‘s different than launching something to market first.”
This trial will be interesting if Judge Koh will agree to keep things fair. So far her track record has not been that great after reversing her decision on granting Apple a ban that was not warranted under the guidelines she was supposed to use and considering the fact that she actively worked for a firm that represented Apple. As a judge she should have recused herself like she did with Facebook instead of sticking with the case and making it look like she is showing bias towards Apple.
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