Samsung Claims iPhone’s Design Was Inspired By Sony Product


Apple and Samsung’s trial kicks off in a federal district court in San Jose, California on Monday.

As we reported earlier, Apple has filed a document as a part of its briefing for the trial in which it makes arguments in favor of its “Samsung copied Apple stance” using statements made by both, Samsung and Google.


AllThingsD points us to the trial document filed by Samsung in which the company claims that Apple’s inspiration for the original iPhone CAD drawings and designs were inspired by a Sony product:


Right after this article was circulated internally, Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori was directed to prepare a “Sony-like” design for an Apple phone and then had CAD drawings and a three-dimensional model prepared. Confirming the origin of the design, these internal Apple CAD drawings prepared at Mr. Nishibori‘s direction even had the “Sony” name prominently emblazoned on the phone design, as the below images from Apple‘s internal documents show.

Soon afterward, on March 8, 2006, Apple designer Richard Howarth reported that, in contrast to another internal design that was then under consideration, Mr. Nishibori‘s “Sony-style” design enabled “a much smaller-looking product with a much nicer shape to have next to your ear and in your pocket” and had greater “size and shape/comfort benefits.” As Mr. Nishibori has confirmed in deposition testimony, this “Sony-style” design he prepared changed the course of the project that yielded the final iPhone design.

The article referenced in the trial document filed by Samsung  is from a 2006 interview with Sony product designers Takashi Ashida and Yujin Morisawa that appeared in Businessweek.




John Packowski of AllThingsD believes that it is going to be difficult for Samsung to prove that iPhone’s design is a derivative of another design. However, he points out that Samsung’s main objective is to establish  that there is prior art enough to undermine Apple’s claims that it “slavishly copied” the iPhone.


If the iPhone is “Sony style” in its design, then Apple has no right accuse Samsung of cribbing from its work. As the company’s legal team writes in its brief: “Samsung has used the very same public domain design concepts that Apple borrowed from other competitors, including Sony, to develop the iPhone.”

The trial scheduled to start next week would surely pack in a lot of action. As always, we’ll keep you updated with the latest from the trial.





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