Samsung designer says Galaxy Tab 10.1 design work preceded iPad announcement
Samsung marched a number of witnesses to the stand on Wednesday in efforts to rebut Apple's patent infringement claims, including an industrial designer involved in the design of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a number of Galaxy smartphones.
One of the first things principal Samsung industrial designer Jin Soo Kim said when he took the stand on Wednesday was that work on the Galaxy 10.1 began in October of 2009, well before the iPad was announced in January 2010. The designer made reference to an email dated January 6, 2010, which included a drawing of the Samsung tablet's design, to support his claims, reports All Things D.
Kim described the various steps involved in the Galaxy Tab 10.1's creation, noting the goal of the project was to maximize screen size while keeping the device's dimensions small. He went on to explain that the original version of the tablet, first shown at Mobile World Conference and never sold in the U.S., was bulkier than the device's revamped 2011 design.
?We decided we would produce the lightest and thinnest tablet in the world,? Kim said in reference to the plethora of tablets announced at the conference. The designer claims the idea to rework the tablet with a thinner profile came before Apple's iPad 2 unveiling in March 2011. He also notes the Galaxy Tab is thinner than Apple's competing model.
On the smartphone front, Kim pointed out the differences in a variety of Galaxy S II handsets he designed, noting that some had larger screens while others had physical QWERTY keyboards.
When asked if he had ever copied Apple's designs, Kim said, "I have not."
Apple lawyer Harold McIlhenny grilled Kim on cross-examination, bringing up the Mobile World Congress 2011 version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The counsel presented two internal Samsung emails which discussed Google's request that the company change one of its designs because it was too similar to the iPad. Another email thread mentions the similarities between Samsung's smartphones and the iPhone before saying, "Google is demanding distinguishable design vis-a-vis the iPad for the P3 [Galaxy Tab 10.1].? Kim said his superiors had never notified him of the emails.
On redirect, Samsung lawyer John Quinn had Kim confirm that the P3 tablet described in the email never made it to market.
With two days of testimony left in the Apple v. Samsung trial, the parties have little time left with which to work as both are nearing their allotted 25 hour limits. Samsung is in an especially tight spot with 2.5 hours left on the clock, compared to Apple's seven hours.
The Cupertino company plans to use part of the time it has left to offer witness testimony over Samsung's handling of standards essential patents. Apple's tentative witness list includes 21 people, though it might whittle down that number given the time constraints.
According to in-court reports from All Things D's Ina Fried, Samsung lawyers threatened to produce a mound of objections if Apple didn't cut down on the witness list.
?Please don?t do this to me,? Judge Koh said. ?I?ve cried uncle.?
She went on to note that her small team can't keep up with the parties' "legions of lawyers."
?I?m trying to do this as expeditiously as humanly possible,? Judge Koh said.
Apple v. Samsung will continue through Friday, and the judge hopes to have rulings for a few outstanding motions and 300 pages worth of jury instructions done by Sunday, thus allowing for oral arguments on Monday. The jury is expected to begin deliberating on Wednesday following closing arguments from Apple and Samsung on Tuesday.
One of the first things principal Samsung industrial designer Jin Soo Kim said when he took the stand on Wednesday was that work on the Galaxy 10.1 began in October of 2009, well before the iPad was announced in January 2010. The designer made reference to an email dated January 6, 2010, which included a drawing of the Samsung tablet's design, to support his claims, reports All Things D.
Kim described the various steps involved in the Galaxy Tab 10.1's creation, noting the goal of the project was to maximize screen size while keeping the device's dimensions small. He went on to explain that the original version of the tablet, first shown at Mobile World Conference and never sold in the U.S., was bulkier than the device's revamped 2011 design.
?We decided we would produce the lightest and thinnest tablet in the world,? Kim said in reference to the plethora of tablets announced at the conference. The designer claims the idea to rework the tablet with a thinner profile came before Apple's iPad 2 unveiling in March 2011. He also notes the Galaxy Tab is thinner than Apple's competing model.
On the smartphone front, Kim pointed out the differences in a variety of Galaxy S II handsets he designed, noting that some had larger screens while others had physical QWERTY keyboards.
When asked if he had ever copied Apple's designs, Kim said, "I have not."
Apple lawyer Harold McIlhenny grilled Kim on cross-examination, bringing up the Mobile World Congress 2011 version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The counsel presented two internal Samsung emails which discussed Google's request that the company change one of its designs because it was too similar to the iPad. Another email thread mentions the similarities between Samsung's smartphones and the iPhone before saying, "Google is demanding distinguishable design vis-a-vis the iPad for the P3 [Galaxy Tab 10.1].? Kim said his superiors had never notified him of the emails.
On redirect, Samsung lawyer John Quinn had Kim confirm that the P3 tablet described in the email never made it to market.
With two days of testimony left in the Apple v. Samsung trial, the parties have little time left with which to work as both are nearing their allotted 25 hour limits. Samsung is in an especially tight spot with 2.5 hours left on the clock, compared to Apple's seven hours.
The Cupertino company plans to use part of the time it has left to offer witness testimony over Samsung's handling of standards essential patents. Apple's tentative witness list includes 21 people, though it might whittle down that number given the time constraints.
According to in-court reports from All Things D's Ina Fried, Samsung lawyers threatened to produce a mound of objections if Apple didn't cut down on the witness list.
?Please don?t do this to me,? Judge Koh said. ?I?ve cried uncle.?
She went on to note that her small team can't keep up with the parties' "legions of lawyers."
?I?m trying to do this as expeditiously as humanly possible,? Judge Koh said.
Apple v. Samsung will continue through Friday, and the judge hopes to have rulings for a few outstanding motions and 300 pages worth of jury instructions done by Sunday, thus allowing for oral arguments on Monday. The jury is expected to begin deliberating on Wednesday following closing arguments from Apple and Samsung on Tuesday.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
When asked if he had ever copied Apple's designs, Kim said, "I have not."
Doesn't matter whether infringement was intentional or inadvertent.
But willful copying might incur a bigger damage award.
Maybe work on it started before the iPad was announced, but if I remember correctly, after the iPad was released Samsung decided to postpone launching it because they wanted to redesign it to be more competitive. They even made a statement themselves that the design they had been working on was too thick and heavy.
If that is the case, wouldn't that prove that they intended to change their product in response to the iPad's release. Given that, and the fact that the released model looks so freakishly similar to the iPad, shouldn't that prove willful intent?
Quote:
Originally Posted by d-range
Maybe work on it started before the iPad was announced, but if I remember correctly, after the iPad was released Samsung decided to postpone launching it because they wanted to redesign it to be more competitive. They even made a statement themselves that the design they had been working on was too thick and heavy.
The thick version was released (10.1V in europe, vodafone special). The thin version was exactly the same design, only thinner.
So the changes made were mostly on the inside and a thinner backplate.
I think it is irrelevant that Samsung worked on their tablet before the iPad was released. Many of the components in the iPad were sourced through Samsung many, many months before the iPad's release. Samsung may even have provided parts for prototypes. Contrary to many of the comments in these forums, I don't think the Samsung engineers are stupid (unimaginative, maybe). They didn't need to have all the parts to get a good idea how the iPad would work and look. And there was the iPhone already out in the open. Lest anyone forget, the iPhone's function and design was based on Apple's research on what was to become the iPad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by d-range
Maybe work on it started before the iPad was announced, but if I remember correctly, after the iPad was released Samsung decided to postpone launching it because they wanted to redesign it to be more competitive. They even made a statement themselves that the design they had been working on was too thick and heavy.
I remember that too. I'd like to find a reference.
If I remember correctly, there were dozens of tablets at CES prior to the ipad announcement. Once the ipad was shown to the world, all those tablets from CES were either scraped or postponed for over a year.
October '09 "Samung begins work on…" January '10 "Apple Announces…" (and ships about 3 months later)
The period between Samsung "starting work on a tablet" and Apple "announcing a finished product" is almost exactly 3 months.
According to Apple, the iPad was a product YEARS in the making. Samsung STARTED developing a tablet 6 months prior to Apple shipping one. Meaning, Samsung (having already "slavishly copied" the iPhone by this time), and having an "inside track" on parts and production specifications, started designing a tablet based on Apple's upcoming iPad…
That much is apparent to me. The trick is in proving it.
I think Samsung helped that proof quite a bit by claiming they started developing their tablet right about the same time Apple's specs would HAVE to be hitting the parts manufacturing market in order to ramp for a release in 6 months...
Quote:
Originally Posted by d-range
Maybe work on it started before the iPad was announced, but if I remember correctly, after the iPad was released Samsung decided to postpone launching it because they wanted to redesign it to be more competitive. They even made a statement themselves that the design they had been working on was too thick and heavy.
That is my recollection as well. "Competitive" - laugh out loud.
The iPad project started years before the iPhone was announced.
That time frame seems to line up with when the Apple tablet rumours started becoming rampant.
I had photo's of the Galaxy Tab 10.1V launch in Australia, they WERE in my iDisk, I've got them somewhere in iPhoto.
It was the 23rd March 2011
So they wanted to make it "thinner", "thinner" than what?
They did make it "thinner" than an iPad but what prompted them to make it that "thin" in the months before the iPad was shown?
What did they base their "thinness" target on.
That is the key to the lie.
Edit, found photo, wrong year
This was the event
This was the pre iPad 2 Tab
Then this is the one that was announced in March 2011, after the iPad 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
The designer made reference to an email dated January 6, 2010, which included a drawing of the Samsung tablet's design, to support his claims, reports All Things D.
So how did this email survive the 2-week lifespan? If the designer kept a copy then isn't he in direct opposition to the Company policy? Shouldn't they fire him or something?
I'd like to see this end with a Jury verdict, even though there will be a round 2. How many time will the CEOs try to settle?
The quicker we move away from Samsung ( or in fact any Korean based company ) the better. No more NAND, Fabs, HDD, Display, IP etc.
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sigh... people can talk all they want, but in the end they didn't release before the iPad.
did any one ask how long Apple took to build the iPad? I remember it was before the iPhone.
Also keep in mind in October 2009 there were rumors abound regarding a device called "iPad". Ofcourse Samsung, being the arch-copier of this planet, decided to do some initial investigating & design-work. This report just fits the profile Samsung copies everything they can get their hands on. Just a quick Google search turns up there were already rumors of the original iPad on Sept 29. http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/29/ipad-rumors-abound-apple-to-announce-on-january-19-shipping-in-may/
They're simply proving Apple's case.
They worked on a tablet before Apple did (with work apparently starting about the time all the rumors started flying about Apple's iPad). However, that tablet was no good, so they never released it. They instead reworked the product as soon as the iPad came out and history shows that their modifications involved making it look exactly like Apple's iPad. Same appearance (close enough that their attorneys couldn't tell the difference), same packaging, same charger/cable.
Furthermore, the fact that Samsung had been working on different tablets that didn't look like the iPad completely refutes the "there's only one way to build a tablet" argument.
Apple probably doesn't even need to testify - they could simply cite the fact that Samsung's own testimony confirms that they copied.
Oh, and btw, at least on utility patents, independent development is not a defense. If I file for a patent on something on January 1, 2005 and you start working on it 6 months later, I can still sue you for patent infringement (and win) even if your product makes it to market before mine. Utility patent protection begins on the date of filing. I'm not sure how priority dates work for design patents, but at the very least, these arguments are irrelevant wrt the utility patents.
Anyone want to bet that Samsung tries to continue past their allotted time? Their behavior in this entire trial indicates that they couldn't care less about judicial rules or procedures. From their perspective, it works to their advantage if the judge has to shout them down. They can play the "there were many more things we wanted to show you, but the judge wouldn't let us" card in closing arguments. Of course, if the stuff they didn't get to is no better than what they've already provided, the argument is meaningless, but that won't stop them from trying.
Anyone still defending this company is well, I simply have no words to describe you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BestKeptSecret
So how did this email survive the 2-week lifespan? If the designer kept a copy then isn't he in direct opposition to the Company policy? Shouldn't they fire him or something?
I'd like to see this end with a Jury verdict, even though there will be a round 2. How many time will the CEOs try to settle?
Many people of technical nature know how to circumvent company policy when the policy serves no purpose but CYA, but results in substantially more work for them if they comply.
One place I worked for had a 60 day email retention policy or something, but I had email going back since I started working there. I circumvented the policy by moving the emails inside outlook to locally stored (on the network) folders. So in a sense, the emails were deleted, but they were now the equivalent of hard copies. Only about 1% of these emails were ever useful past the 60 day policy, but those that were saved hours of work when it came to following up on customer issues in a legal situation. The Lawyers would always creatively ask for email, like "in a potential lawsuit, could you provide me with all documentation of contact with X?" and you'd do a quick search inside inside the locally stored stuff for emails that are within the retention policy guidelines, hit reply to that email to update the timestamp, and forward it.
Deletion policies are implemented for two reasons:
1. The company receives so much email that keeping everything is impossible, so to prevent the email server from running out of space, the policy deletes emails over a certain age. Some employees enjoy sending pictures of cats that fill up the email system, some employees always do "reply all", thus filling up multiple inboxes. So the deletion policy makes sense when you have employees that can't act responsibly. Responsible employees will save emails that they know will come back and bite them if they don't. So CYA works both ways.
2. The company is frequently the target of lawsuits, or the company willfully engages in corporate sabotage/espionage/bridge burning. In which this seems to suggest why 2weeks was chosen by Samsung. I can't prove it, but 2weeks seems like it was picked because that's the longest anyone can be expected to take a vacation and not take their work with them. If the governments had their way, every company would be required to keep 5 years of email, access logs, etc.
Please note that "email retention policy" is what it's named in outlook. Places of employement rarely have actual employee polices that are enforceable since it would require 1:1 supervision to employee ratio. The employee polices are in place so that an employee can be terminated for wilfull misconduct. If everyone was expected to follow data retention policies to the letter, more places would be found automatically guilty of data destruction.
Sammy... we don't have short memory.
Let's go back to 2011:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/221367/the_apple_ipad_2_effect_samsung_rethinks_its_galaxy_tab_101.html