Icon Ripoffs and Copycat Designs Revealed in Apple Vs. Samsung Trial

In case you haven’t been scouring Apple blogs and have instead been watching some new reality show called “The Olympics,” then you might not have heard that Apple and Samsung are currently waging patent/copyright war in a San Jose courtroom. This has been going on for several days, and now things are getting nice and heated… We’re here to present you with some of the most interesting highlights so far, including a revealing quote from an internal Samsung document and some photo evidence of Samsung’s obvious Apple icon ripoffs.

I’m glad not to be in that courtroom right now (not that I was asked…), seeing as my opinion of Samsung has been formed for quite some time. How they got by this long without a major lawsuit like this one is beyond me, but it’s going to take a miracle for them to come away with all their billions in tact. Wouldn’t you agree after taking a look at the below icon comparisons?

So, if Samsung copied the iOS icons, what else did they like about Apple’s mobile operating system that they might have been tempted to “borrow”? A quote from an internal document shows that they highly revered the Apple user experience, going so far as to say that when their own products were compared to the iPhone the difference was “truly that of Heaven and Earth.” Beyond that, the document acknowledges that the iPhone has become the standard and states that they (Samsung) are in a “crisis of design.”

So, what do you do in a crisis of design? Go back to the drawing board to come up with something really original, or discreetly copy the competitor? One industrial design expert, Peter Bressler, believes Samsung clearly copied Apple’s iPhone and iPad designs in many of its products. “My opinion (is) that there are a number of Samsung phones and two Samsung tablets that are substantially the same as the design in those (Apple) patents,” said Bressler in court. See for it yourself in the bottom image. Just compare Samsung’s phones on the right to the iPhone (left). Does it look more and more like the iPhone both in exterior design and the icons?

click image to enlarge

About the Author

Devin Wieland

 

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