UK Judge says Galaxy Tab 'not as cool' as iPad, awards Samsung win in suit | Hacker News Reader

UK Judge says Galaxy Tab 'not as cool' as iPad, awards Samsung win in suit

engadget.com

79 pointsmrsebastian20 comments

This article is very misleading. Here is the actual full statement, courtesy of http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/46416/samsung-statement-appl... :

"In a ruling on July 9, 2012, the High Court of England & Wales sided with Samsung that the designs of the Galaxy Tab series of products are 'different' from an Apple tablet design, and do not infringe Apple’s Registered Community Design No. 181607-0001. Samsung products subject to this trial were the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Galaxy Tab 8.9, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7.

"Samsung had requested this voluntary trial in September 2011, in order to oppose Apple’s ongoing efforts to reduce consumer choice and innovation in the tablet market through their excessive legal claims and arguments. Apple has insisted that the three Samsung tablet products infringe several features of Apple’s design right, such as 'slightly rounded corners,' 'a flat transparent surface without any ornamentation,' and 'a thin profile.'

"However, the High Court dismissed Apple’s arguments by referring to approximately 50 examples of prior art, or designs that were previously created or patented, from before 2004. These include the Knight Ridder (1994), the Ozolin (2004), and HP’s TC1000 (2003). The court found numerous Apple design features to lack originality, and numerous identical design features to have been visible in a wide range of earlier tablet designs from before 2004.

"Equally important, the court also found distinct differences between the Samsung and Apple tablet designs, which the court claimed were apparent to the naked eye. For instance, the court cited noticeable differences in the front surface design and in the thinness of the side profile. The court found the most vivid differences in the rear surface design, a part of tablets that allows designers a high degree of freedom for creativity, as there are no display panels, buttons, or any technical functions. Samsung was recognised by the court for having leveraged such conditions of the rear surface to clearly differentiate its tablet products through 'visible detailing.'

"Samsung welcomes today’s ruling by the High Court, which affirms Samsung’s commitment to protect its own intellectual property rights while respecting those of other companies. Samsung believes Apple’s excessive legal claims based on such a generic design right can harm not only the industry’s innovation as a whole, but also unduly limit consumer choice."

That was a really poorly written article, even by Engadget standards.

Well that seems like a ruling in favour of common sense, then.

The Judge's statements from the Bloomberg article weren't in the official statement:

> The Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Birss said. “They are not as cool.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-09/samsung-wins-u-k-ap...

The full judgement is here: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgment...

The word "cool" appears twice, and the quotes from the Engadget article are there (albeit selected from a long document).

Kind of strange to read a British High Court judge commenting on coolness in industrial design.

And we all know that what an ageing judge thinks is cool must be right on the bleeding edge of hip-ness :)

I'm not sure age matters as much as we might think it does. Steve jobs was no young man when Apple came back from near oblivion, and he was very active in determining what was "cool".

I'm not sure having someone invested in determining 'cool' is valid in any way or if it even has any meaning or should be given any importance.

But seems you attribute a value to that, so subjectivly that will work for you and it will provide a self rewarding feeling of belonging. Look at it in a broader way and we are back to square one, each person gets to pick what the person wants and likes, no matter how influenceable one is. It's just that. Lets not group this judge, Jobs and the Fonz for reinforcement conditioning.

is this just an ingenious way of preventing an appeal by Apple? They probably don't want to see headlines like "Apple claims Galaxy Tab 'just as cool' as iPad"

This decision is limited to registered design right and so has limited effect. However, it is the right decison and is well reasoned notwithstanding the judge's reference to the respective coolness of each of the products.

I am surprised that Apple's lawyers advised them to pursue the claim considering the prior art and the basic nature of the designs. Having only just looked at Apple's registered design on the OHIM website, it is a little laughable (resembling a dinner tray on first impressions).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zhto46p2jphrq27/apple.bmp

Funny enough this suggest that the judge understands the subtleties of design better than the tech-heads at Engadget, who like so many others regularly claim competing products match the design quality of Apple products.

It always irks me when people, especially professional critics and reviewers, call it a matter of taste just because they can't spot the difference. It isn't. Personal preference is a matter of taste, but the difference in design quality between Samsung (or HTC, or Dell, etc) and Apple is objectively observable. Just like there is a clear difference between a TV set designed by Samsung and one by Bang & Olufsen or Loewe.

(Which is exactly why I believe Apple should stop suing second rate look-alikes. If people want to buy Samsung they were never potential Apple clients in the first place, and if Apple wants that market too they should just build products for it.)

I won't dive in to argue with you, because clearly that's been done before. I'll just point out that you made that "objectively observable" point without any actual, y'know, evidence. That, by definition, makes your argument one of taste, not facts. Please (please!) stop.

I don't understand, what would that evidence even be? What exactly are you looking for here?

I'm looking for precisely your admission: the evidence can't possibly exist. Ergo, it's not "objectively observable". It's a taste thing. So rickmb's sanctimony is just plain wrong. (And, IMHO, deeply hurtful to the community and the market. But that's a flame war I don't think anyone wants to get into.)

As an objective fact Apples rate of tablet defects is well below Samsung's.

That could well be so (though I'd encourage you to include citations for stuff like that -- some quick googling turned up nothing for me, and as stated I'm very much not interested in yet another Apple vs. the world flame war). But it's a needless digression; rickmb was clearly talking about the "design values" considered by the UK judge, not physical build quality which is obviously not an IP issue.

Asus' rate of laptop defects is well below apple. Does that mean they're objectively better designed? This is just more apple fanboyism masquerading as an appeal to rationality, rebuke was perfectly justified.

IMO, Asus laptops are better designed than Apple's laptop's so I don't disagree with that line of thinking. However, when you take an iPad apart they are much better designed internally than most of their competitors. Probably because most of those laptops where rushed imitations. The Nexus 7 could be the tipping point, but it's also 200$ which makes direct comparisons harder.

Anyway, prior to the iPhone Samsung was my faverate cellphone manufacture and they made some great monitors, so IMO just give them time and they will start making great tablets.

> objectively observable

Design is never objective. Even from a usability testing perspective, different people have different results.

2/10 - Too obvious.

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