Hasta La Gadget!

In a lawsuit filed Friday, Apple accused Samsung of copying the iPad and the iPhone, and the Korean giant is threatening to retaliate.

Apple’s lawsuit named some Samsung phones and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, claiming that their similarities with Apple products were beyond the realm of coincidence. The Cupertino, California corporation has accused Samsung of committing patent and trademark infringements.

“Samsung will respond actively to this legal action taken against us through appropriate legal measures to protect our intellectual property,” the South Korean company said in a statement.

Samsung added that it has successfully built its own intellectual portfolio based on its own technologies.

Most interesting to note is that Apple is a customer of Samsung: The Korean company is the supplier of some components for Apple, and it manufactures some of the A4 and A5 processors that power the iPad, iPhone and Apple TV.

Given the relationship between the two companies, the lawsuit shows that Apple isn’t afraid to sue anyone when it comes to its intellectual property, notes Nilay Patel, a former copyright attorney and former Engadget editor. Patel posted a full analysis of the lawsuit at This Is My Next Podcast.

Apple’s lawsuit, which went public today [.pdf], includes a collection of images (above) comparing Apple packaging, hardware and software with Samsung’s. Occasionally the images are stacked side by side to depict similarities.

In addition to claims of patent infringement and trademark infringement, Apple lists examples of “trade dress” infringement, which is basically a trademark for design elements.

The elements listed under “trade dress” infringements include “a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded,” “the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders,” “a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface,” and other characteristics used to describe a flat slab with a touchscreen.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

We’ve just laid eyes on a video from the prolific leaksters over at Tinhte, who claim they not only have a white iPhone 4 from Apple, but it’s one with a “test version” of iOS that nobody else has yet seen. It’s difficult to ascertain how legitimate this software is — it could just be a neatly done jailbreak mod — but that site has a track record of getting its hands on Apple gear ahead of the pack. With that said, the multitasking menu shown here substitutes the current use of apps’ icons to represent them with a visual of each app’s open window. You can tap on a window to expand it (replete with animation) to fill the screen or long-press on it to bring up the familiar “x” button for shutting it down. This is all accompanied by a new “Search iPhone” dialog at the very top, which sends you into Spotlight search that looks very much the way it currently does (though it seems to no longer be accessible with a left swipe from the first homescreen as on previous versions of iOS). Jump past the break for the video.

Update: A second video has been uncovered, this one showing that we’re looking at a prototype unit and taking us on a tour around its body. A visit to the Settings menu shows a 64GB storage capacity, while app folder creation is also handled a little differently from iOS 4. The presence of the Touch Fighter app on this phone, which Apple built to show off the capabilities of earlier versions of the handset, and other internal-looking software seems to point to this indeed being some form of iOS beta build. Of course, it might not be iOS 5 at all, but simply a never-released version of iOS 4. All we know for sure is that the video’s after the break.

Update 2: All indications are that this is indeed an early, unreleased version of iOS 4. Interesting, but probably not something to get your hopes up about.

Continue reading White iPhone 4 used to demo new multitasking, Spotlight search in ‘test version’ of iOS? (video)

White iPhone 4 used to demo new multitasking, Spotlight search in ‘test version’ of iOS? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want some numerical context to last night’s revelation that Apple is suing Samsung Electronics for copying the iPhone and iPad? How does $5.7 billion sound? That’s how much Apple spent on buying up parts from Samsung last year, according to the AFP, which cites the Cupertino company as Samsung’s second-biggest client after Sony. Given the breadth of Samsung’s component manufacturing, these expenditures can and probably do span everything from flash storage and RAM to processing chips to displays. What’s fascinating here — and illustrative of the psychopathic nature of corporations — is that in spite of this massive interdependency, Apple’s lodged a broadly worded patent assault on a major prong of Samsung’s business (smartphones and tablets) and now Samsung’s been quoted as saying it has “no choice but [to] respond strongly.” A company official has apparently expressed the belief that Apple may be infringing on some of Samsung’s wireless patents, which means we can probably look forward to another fat batch of papers being submitted to the Northern District of California court. Lovely.

Apple spent nearly $5.7b on Samsung parts in 2010, faces ‘strong’ response to its patent suit originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 04:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple claims the Galaxy Tab (right) is a shameless copy of the iPad (left). Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Apple says it’s sick and tired of Samsung ripping off the iPad and iPhone, and the Cupertino, California, company is filing papers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday, Apple accused Samsung of committing patent and trademark infringement with its Galaxy line of mobile products. That includes the Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab tablet.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” an Apple representative said in a statement provided to All Things Digital. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Samsung is also a supplier of components to Apple, and manufactures at least some of the A4 and A5 processors used inside the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, as well as solid-state disk drives used in many Apple products.

Tech giants are already tangled in a number of patent lawsuits filed in years past related to smartphones. Nokia filed suit against Apple in 2009 for patent infringement, Apple filed a patent lawsuit against HTC in 2010, and Microsoft has gone after Google’s partners offering Android-powered products.

In the suit filed against Samsung, Apple contends that Samsung is copying Apple’s products on both the hardware and software levels.

For instance, Apple says the Galaxy Tab “slavishly copies” Apple’s product design, using a rectangular body with rounded corners, a black border and an array of app icons similar to the iPad’s.

Apple also names the Galaxy S, Epic 4G and the Nexus S smartphones, according to a brief report in The Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit filing has yet to appear in the official PACER database.

Wired.com noted last year that the Samsung Vibrant, the predecessor of the Galaxy S, strongly resembles the iPhone.

See Also:

• Apple Tries Short-Circuiting Droid With Patent Lawsuit
• Patent Lawsuit Threatens to Clip Twitter’s Wings
• TomTom To Contest Microsoft Patent Lawsuit
• Paul Allen Files Patent Lawsuits Against Entire Web … Except Microsoft

Whoa! In the world of big-time lawsuits, this must be just about the biggest. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has sued Samsung Electronics for copying “the look and feel” of its iPad tablet and iPhone smartphone. This relates to the Samsung Galaxy S 4G, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone 3G / 3GS models, and the slightly less obvious Epic 4G, Nexus S, and Galaxy Tab (presumably the older 7-inch model, since the newer ones aren’t out yet) devices. The claim for intellectual property infringement is phrased as follows:

“Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California on Friday and seeks injunctions against Samsung, damages (both actual and punitive), and a finding that the infringement was willful. Lest we forget, the rarest outcome in such legal tussles is for an actual judgment to actually be handed down, so the greatest likelihood is that this will just lead to another round of grudging handshakes and licensing going one way with money going the other way, but still, it’s fun to see the big dogs barking at each other.

Another aspect to these proceedings that shouldn’t be overlooked is that, on the software front, they boil down to iOS versus Android (again). When Apple calls Samsung uninventive in its user interface, it’s talking more about Android’s perceived imitation of the iPhone’s interface than whatever TouchWiz tweaks Samsung has slapped on top. And hey, if you’re going to sue Google indirectly, you can’t leave a major player like Samsung outside the courtroom, it just wouldn’t be fair.

Apple sues Samsung for ‘copying’ the iPhone and iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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