As required by the UK court hearing the patent infringement lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, Apple has posted a notice to their UK website informing the public that Samsung did not, according to the court, infringe on the design of the iPad. While the whole affair must be somewhat embarrassing, it didn’t stop Apple from having a little bit of fun, using the judges own words to score points against its largest rival:
In the ruling, the judge made several important points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products:
“The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design.”
“The informed user’s overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool.” (emphasis added)
Apple then goes on to note that the UK court is in the minority in their judgment, as both German and US courts have ruled in favor of Apple:
So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.
All this is somewhat amusing, but I am left to wonder if Apple’s cheeky inclusion of the other court rulings – effectively mocking the UK ruling (and by extension the judge) – might not raise the ire of the Court.
What do you think? Should Apple have lost in the UK court? Should they have been forced to publish a notice acknowledging this? Do you think that including the statements about the other rulings is harmless, or might it come back to bite Apple (pun intended)?
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