Displaying items by tag: Samsung

We told you that as soon as we had access to the cross examination of Peter Bressler we would bring it to you and now we have that. It is exactly what we expected. Bressler was not thorough in his examination of Phones and picked the details he wanted to highlight while skipping over many that might counter his claims. This is despite his claims to the court that as an Industrial designer he was trained to identify the small details. Samsung’s questioning found those inconstancies and narrowed down on them quickly including one or two contradictions.

Apple has a very short memory and also a nasty little habit of getting people involved that share their paranoia. Today one of the people that Apple called was designer Peter Bressler. For those of you that do not know who he is he is a famous designer that also founded his own design group in Philadelphia and was also a leading member of the Industrial Designers Society of America. Sounds like some pretty impressive credentials right? Well we though so as well until we found a small note on the Bressler Group’s site that said “In a world where distinctions are becoming ever more indistinct. Where a $10 wristwatch may well keep better time than a $10,000 chronograph. Where new products proliferate, and differences between them are the difference between success and failure, product design that communicates has never mattered more.”

Samsung V Apple has been the talk of most media outlets for the past week. This is not surprising at all simply because the stakes in this case are so big. As we are sure you are aware Apple has been running an ongoing PR and legal campaign trying to claim that Samsung (their biggest competitor) willfully copied Apples products including the iPhone and iPad. This is something that many media sites have failed to report on despite parroting the statements and press releases from Apple. It was intended to put a predisposition in the minds of people that Samsung is already guilty of copying.

There are some interesting happenings in the Samsung V Apple trial this morning (well, really overnight). It seems that Apple is working very hard to have sales data sealed. As of right now we do not have the motion that Apple filed, so we are not sure if this means Apple is requesting the evidence not be allowed, or if they just do not want it going public. We are hearing from different sources that they may be asking for either or both (we are guessing that they want it barred as evidence).

Yesterday Judge Lucy Koh showed us all that she is not concerned with finding the facts in the matter of Apple’s accusations against Samsung (over copying) just as much as she is not concerned with Apple’s own behavior out of court. He is, however, very keen to make sure she controls what the jury is and is not exposed to from Samsung’s representatives. It is an issue that has not only been reported here, but has also popped up on other media outlets expressing concern that the proceedings are fair at all.

Apple used to have a reputation as a company with some of the most xenophobic security measures and also had the fewest product leaks. There were always predictions based on information that may or may not have come from some of Apple’s suppliers, but in many cases this information was less than accurate. However, since the death of Steve Jobs and the ascent of Tim Cook into the captain’s chair things have radically changed. Now we have almost daily leaks of information about products that have not been announced. Of course when you point this out you face the backlash from many hardcore Apple fans that will tell you this is all according to plan and nothing is wrong (move on folks).

Judge Lucy Koh has apparently decided the fate of the Samsung V Apple case all on her own. In fact she has even ordered evidence to be destroyed. Now correct me if I am wrong, but why on earth would ANY judge interested in making a sound and fair decision ask for evidence to be destroyed. The only reason I can think of is that Luck Koh knows that the evidence is valid and would hurt Apple significantly during this trial. It is apparently also something that Samsung knows as well. Samsung are the ones that leaked this rejected evidence to the press. The move was partly to prove the point that Apple borrowed from Sony for the iPhone design and also to show Judge Koh’s bias in the trial.

After going through the news and editorials about the Apple V Samsung case we have found something very interesting in Apple’s attack methods. One of the lead pieces of evidence for their alleged consumer confusion is the number of returns of Samsung products to stores like Best Buy etc. Apple would like you to believe that customers mistakenly picked up a Galaxy Tab when they meant to get an iPad and then returned it after realizing it was not an iPad. It is a piece of logic that in any other place in the world or with almost any other judge would have been thrown out as preposterous, but for some reason Judge Lucy Koh is letting this stand. You see Apple’s logic and claim here is seriously flawed and here is why.

Not that long ago I received an email from a reader that asked a simple and valid question; “why do you care about what Apple and Samsung are doing?” Like we said; a simple and valid question, but not one that is simple to answer. The  obvious although inaccurate answer is that it is news and it is news about the consumer electronic world. However, that answer (as we just said) is not the whole truth, it is not even close to the whole truth. The reason it is so difficult to answer is that the real reason has nothing to do with Apple or Samsung. The real reason boils down to a few simple concepts; control, innovation and competition.

There are some interesting things that are coming to light in the Samsung Vs Apple trial. Among them are claims from Apple that Samsung was told by Google, its own staff and “famous designers” that their products were too similar to Apple’s patented design. These are pretty damning items when you think about it and go a long way toward proving that Samsung willfully copied Apple with some of their products. With this it would look like Apple certainly has Samsung on the ropes…