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IANAL, but, so what? If you build a stapler using your own internal mechanisms for stapling, and I design my own stapler with my own internal mechanisms, I'm infringing on your ideas just if they both look like staplers from 10 feet away? Or if Firestone patents a certain type of tire, I can never invent my own tire because, from a distance, they both look like tires?

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The central point of the tablet part of the case brought against Samsung was that they had deliberately attempted to confuse customers intent on purchasing an iPad, into purchasing their product instead, while still thinking they were actually purchasing an iPad, by making them visually difficult to distinguish from one another.

I don't necessarily agree with either side and I am also NAL, but when the case hangs on visual recognition, the ability of the legal team to tell the product they are defending apart from their competitors' probably becomes relevant as a microcosm of Apple's contention.

This is about the visual aspect. The accusation is that Samsung deliberately mimicked the look of the iPhone at the time in a bid to cynically confuse consumers at point of sale. That they changed the interface of the OS too is a smoking gun. It's like copying someones homework, but just swapping a few key words and sentences and claiming the work was entirely your own. I agree the question should be asked, I don't necessarily agree with the way Apple chose to ask it, but that is neither here nor there. They feel aggrieved, they are legally entitled to pursue this how they see fit. The "its just a rounded rectangle" argument is reductio ad absurdum.

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