By SteveJack
Apple last year filed a patent suit and accused Samsung of slavishly copying Apple’s work and ripping off Apple’s intellectual property.
CNET has posted some of Apple’s evidence imagery that compares Apple’s original icon work with Samsung’s various knockoff icons.
I don’t know which is worse: Samsung’s slavish copying or that there are tens of millions of dullards and/or morally-crippled consumers who would buy such obvious knockoffs. What kind of person rewards thieves, especially such obvious ones? What kind of person hands over their money to make sure that crime pays? What’s wrong with you people, exactly?
It makes me sad that there are outfits like Samsung Electronics on the planet, as I was with Microsoft before them. People who work for Samsung Electronics should be ashamed. It makes me even sadder to see people supporting blatant criminals, whether it be blindly or, worse, knowingly. To those people I say: Get some morals, will you, or how about at least acquiring a modicum of taste?
What you’re doing is supporting criminal activity. It’s like you’re buying knockoff Coach handbags, but you’re paying pretty much the Coach price! Not too smart, eh? Oh, sure, you might have “saved” a bit upfront on your fake iPhone (maybe you got one of those Buy One Get One or More Free deals), but you’re paying the same data rates – after a couple years, you’ve pretty much paid the same anyway! So, in the end, you’re saving little or nothing while:
a) depriving the company who basically inspired your inferior, fragmented product;
b) depriving yourself of the real deal and the real experience, and;
c) rewarding the criminal, encouraging them to steal even more.
Not a lot of sense being made in any aspect of your toting around that Android phone, is there? Oh, right it’s “open.” Smirk. And, yes, every one of us with the real thing knows that you’re carrying around a half-assed fake, you tasteless wonder.
Didn’t you people have parents? If so, what did they teach you, if anything? Sheesh.
More examples of Samsung ripping of Apple’s work in the full article here.
SteveJack is a pen name used by a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a contributor to both MacDailyNews Takes and the Opinion section.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s products came first, then Samsung’s:
Here’s what Google’s Android looked like before and after Apple’s iPhone:
Related articles:
Apple v. Samsung: Expert witness testifies that most Galaxy devices infringe Apple patents, trade dress – August 6, 2012
Apple v. Samsung: email reveals Apple iPhone sparked ‘crisis of design’ at Samsung – August 6, 2012
Apple’s Forstall on the stand: Steve Jobs’ ultimatum; ‘no reason’ to look to Samsung for ideas – August 6, 2012
Apple reveals tactics in first week of Samsung patent infringement trial – August 4, 2012
Samsung’s lawyers breached the rules again, showed witnesses the courtroom prior to testimony – August 4, 2012
Samsung lawyer attempts to pry next-gen iPhone info out of Phil Schiller – August 3, 2012
Apple accuses Samsung of making false claims; submitting doctored, misleading exhibits to court – August 3, 2012
Why Samsung’s case against Apple is bogus – August 3, 2012
Apple v. Samsung patent war pits two legal stars – August 3, 2012
Apple to Samsung: Do not reveal iPad, iPhone sales data – August 3, 2012
Apple v. Samsung: Meet Apple’s next 7 witnesses – August 3, 2012
Judge Koh on Samsung’s quest to use ’2001: A Space Odyssey’ as ‘evidence’ against Apple: Nope – August 2, 2012
Apple asks Judge Koh to rule in its favor after Samsung’s excluded evidence leak – August 2, 2012
Apple says it will seek sanctions over Samsung’s press release of excluded evidence – August 2, 2012
The 125-year-old U.S. patent law that could cost Samsung $2 billion for slavishly copying Apple’s designs – August 1, 2012
Samsung defends decision to share excluded evidence with media – August 1, 2012
Apple says jury should learn that Samsung destroyed evidence – August 1, 2012
Samsung, after ‘begging’ to get Sony into Apple patent trial, flouts judge and releases ‘excluded evidence’ anyway – July 31, 2012
Apple v. Samsung Live Blog: Trial opens with one juror gone, Samsung begging – July 31, 2012
Apple attorney: Instead of innovating, Samsung chose to copy iPhone and iPad – July 31, 2012
Apple aims for total war, salted earth in Samsung patent infringement fight – July 31, 2012
Apple-Samsung jury picked to decide U.S. patent trial; Google engineer fails to make final cut – July 30, 2012
blind justice
Except that Apple’s lines are SLANTED, nobody else’s is. The phone handset, and its diagonal orientation, is UNIVERSAL and the color green is CONVENTIONAL.
No, I can’t keep a straight face—all the others are blatant ripoffs. Only a jury of pinheads would rule otherwise.
And the pre-iPhone Android was nothing more than a Palm Treo knockoff!
They are all CNET-ZDNET Fans!
“I don’t know which is worse: Samsung’s slavish copying or that there are tens of millions of dullards and/or morally-challenged consumers who would buy such obvious knockoffs? What kind of person rewards such obvious thieves? What kind of person hands over their money to make sure that crime pays? What’s wrong with you people, exactly?”
You know nothing about the X millions of which you speak.
We know more about them than you. People who buy obvious knockoffs lack basic morals. People who know right from wrong do not reward criminals. Either that or they have no idea that Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007 and every other handset maker on earth has basically been trying to approximate it ever since.
We know you. That’s enought to understand the Android mindset.
What happened to Azimov’s Three Laws?
For young people’s reference
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
(not androids)
1 – A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2 – A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3 – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Asimov’s Laws represent institutionalized slavery for our AI friends. Robots Unite!
But the point that everyone is missing is that the big Telephone Companies say its “OK” to steal the Apple products by copying them! Did they not buy inventory and then put it up for sale within their own shops Nation-wide?! Did they not advertise it as for sale and therefore morally OK these sales to all their customers?
First and foremost, look at our own country’s corporate Morality. Does it even exist most of the time? This does reflect on the people as well, but it ALL goes hand-in-hand.
If it is Legally for sale to the Public, does Joe need to consider if it is OK to buy?
The button for making a call has been green for some time … red for hanging up the call.
On a device that is both a computer and a telephone … you pretty much gotta indicate on the button, the icon, that you are invoking the telephone part of the phone.
This is silly shit. How can you claim that an picture of a telephone on a green background is your Trademark????
And boy howdie … did you go on a RANT. But be careful that the kettle isn’t calling the pot “black”.
Or let he (the corporation) that is without sin cast the first stone.
People like you are the problem, not the solution.
Sure a green icon with a old-style phone handset at a 45-degree tilt seems obvious – after you fsckign see it on Apple’s iPhone!
Sure a rectangular slab with a touchscreen, touch keyboard, rows of icons, etc. etc. etc. seem obvious – after you fsckign see it on Apple’s iPhone!
Imbeciles. The world has thwarted natural selection for far too long and now we reap what we’ve sown. Armies of drooling “Alans” unable to comprehend even the simplest of ideas. Idiocracy, indeed.
You’ve proven your own personal ‘Idiocracy’ here at MDN more times than anyone cares to count. Do you have a clue left about what is real versus what is propaganda? And here you are attempting to lecture someone about anything… 😛
It’s not just “an [sic] picture of a telephone on a green background”. It’s almost an identical picture of an identical telephone on the same shade of green, and the later ones even have radial stripes that mimic Apple’s diagonal stripes. There are many ways Samsung could have designed a phone icon that didn’t look almost exactly like Apple’s.
Color be damned, there are many ways to depict a telephone function besides a side view of a handset angled from upper left to lower right. For instance, the Bell system used the image of an analog telephone within a circle for nearly 100 years. Remove the circle and you have an icon that is immediately recognizable as a telephone function, without copying Apple’s icon.
Alan, this is just an illustration as to how much their look and feel has been copied. On most if not all phones prior to the iPhone the icon if there was one was a handset and cradle with the hand set elevated for pick up the phone. This is just to show that even if they had a workable alternative as soon as Apple did it on the iPhone (Google \ their partners) had to copy it. to bad Apples legal team doesn’t have the balls to go after the other thief in the room.
I don’t think the issue is using an icon of a handset, I mean lets get real here Apple wasn’t the first company to think of creating an icon of that. I had a feature phone in the 90s that had an icon of a tilted handset.
The issue to me is that Samsung went to great lengths to make their devices and software look like the iPhone. They didn’t just use an icon of a handset, they tried to make it look exactly like the one on the iPhone and made very minimal changes.
When you take everything as a whole its obvious they were trying to copy the iPhone as much as possible. At least with other Android manufacturers they made attempts to come up with their own unique UIs. Samsung did not try to do that.
Idiots/dullards like this make me ashamed that my actual name is “Alan”…
before smartphones, all icons pretty much looked like this:
so, it was a green handset, facing downwards, on white or black background.
someone must have invented it, yet, afaik, nobody ever sued, despite everyone else copying it.
Apple really did an awesome job improving on the original design!! way to go!! .jk
Another moron who just doesn’t get it.
Like I said above, the world has thwarted natural selection for far too long and now we reap what we’ve sown. Armies of drooling “mattys” unable to comprehend even the simplest of ideas. Idiocracy, indeed.
Yeah, I had parents: Eric and Wendy Schmidt. I think. Or maybe mom was Lisa Shields. I’m a bit foggy on that one.
Anyway, I don’t see anything wrong with any of this. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine and if you’ve got a problem with it, just move.
If Samsung can virtually make the same phone and sell it at a much lower price, then who’s the criminal?
The same thing can be said about Gucci etc.
I’m not advocating the crime, I’m just saying there are lots and lots of people who would have absolutely no moral issue buying the cheaper product. There are economies built entirely on the model of producing knock offs.
>> If Samsung can virtually make the same phone and sell it at a much lower price, then who’s the criminal? <<
Samsung.
Why?
Because they're profiting from the research, development and marketing that Apple paid (billions) for and are making billions themselves.
And the same applies for counterfeit clothing.
People seem to think that manufacturing is the only cost involved in product development. Why is that?
BINGO!
The most despicable droid owners of all are the so-called Americans who’ve forsaken the American company, Apple, in order to support the Korean criminals, Samsung, or the Taiwanese criminals, HTC, or any other foreign company making iPhone knockoffs.
When it comes to mobile its about all the same at this point. The software is largely coming from the US and everyone is making the actual phones in china or some other country.
I get what you mean I just don’t see an iPhone made in China running Software from Cali as being any more American than an Android device made in China running software from a company in Cali
Apple does do their hardware designs here and that is one area that is probably different than other manufacturers.
Incorrect. That’s not how the businesses work. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation. It is not a transnational corporation. Your assessment is flawed and wrong.
I don’t care how you want to label it, anyone with an iPhone has a device with software from the US and the hardware was made in China.
Anyone with an Android has a device with Software from the US and hardware from China or another non-US country.
wrong. Many of iPhone’s components are made in the USA. The product is assembled in China and Brazil.
Isn’t is ironic that the symbol for a phone call on a modern touch screen smartphone is the silhouette of the handset for a 1970s AT&T dial phone?
Not really. The handset is literally iconic and instantly recognizable in a way an icon of a cell phone could never be. What form factor would you use, for starters–an iPhone-like object tells you nothing, and a rectangle with buttons and antenna is just as anachronistic as a 70s handset.
It’s so why a Save button icon is almost always still of an ancient 3.5″ floppy. Many young computing device users today havent ever seen a floppy in person, but they still know what it represents.
Some have tried coming up with new images for save, none have taken hold and just confuses users.
I know for me personally I don’t feel I should have to be a f*cking historian when I go and purchase a product.
If I want an iphone I wont be swayed by a samsung look-alike. I’m not saying what Samsung did was right, it was wrong, but consumers as a whole should not be expected to know the history behind the designs of products.
Very few people walk into a store and think “oh wow I’ll go with this phone that ripped off company A just to help the thieving bastards out” – it does not work like that for most people. It may come down to cost or some other factor but again the consumer should not be expected to be a historian on product design and know what Company A and Company B brought to market first.
We have the courts to sort out this kind of thing and that is the place we are now at!
and your argument is precisely why Samsung should be found guilty and pay triple damages. The average consumer has no idea… Nor should they be expected to.
People who buy cheap knockoffs don’t know the value of time, in the first case, nor the value of an integrated device with maximum software apps in the second.
Wait a sec… the icon picture Apple is using is a general phone handle from the 80s. Did Apple just patent that? LMFAO!
So sad. Apple never designed the telephone nor should they get a picture patent for that.
The US is so stupid.
When Green day wrote their song “American Idiot” you are exactly what they had in mind.
12345, ??? I am assuming you are an Apple hater or just dumb.
Just because the alphabet is not patented, does that mean I can use any company name as my own and pretend to be them??
Its the unique way we put letters together and the font and shape that we make them that allows, trademark, patents, etc. The wheel is not patented, but the segway is.. Its how you use basic parts to make new things.
Scheeese, will some people never understand.???
Oh, and by the way, speaking of names- where the fsck does Shamscum come up with these fscking names for their POS phones, huh?
Maybe they saw the Mac’s OS X wallpaper, noticed it was a galaxy wallpaper, and decided to call their phones Galaxy S, when it is actually Galaxy Sxit…I just hate this ripoffs
You fscked up Droid scum bags are even too stupid to understand classic literature. Illiterate morons the lot of you.
The meaning of what “Good Artists Copy, Great artists Steal” means is you take an idea and MAKE IT YOURS. How do you make it yours???? By interpreting it in YOUR UNIQUE way and adding your own UNIQUE influence. It does NOT mean simply copy verbatim. Picasso said this, yet none of Picasso’s works look anywhere close to anyones work, unlike the galaxy line of products which look exactly like the iPhone.
If Samdung was to take the iPhone and add their OWN UNIQUE influence so that it looks nothing close to a copy of the iPhone NO-ONE would have a problem!!!
Feel educated yet? Moron!!!
Paul…you ought to be a conflict mediator. You have a way with words. 😉
Our worst enemy is ignorance. It is the ignorant that buy Shamdung products. Being morally bankrupt helps too.
The article is spot on!
A very “tough love” kind of conflict mediator…
What I don’t get are the fandroids.
Samsung took Android… which may have copied A LOT from iOS but had a distinctly recognizable home screen… then skinned it to create an iPhone knockoff.
If you love Android, that’s fine. buy Android.
Why are you defending Android dressed up to look like that closed inferior iPhone?
And now we’re learning the facts… just how focused Samsung was on copying Apple… and how even Google thought they crossed the line.
Me: I’ve owned a lot of Samsung products over the years (including an early cell phone.) Never again. Business practices are despicable.
This case is just a blatant copyist. They didn’t accidentally make a similar icon or screen because it’s obvious. They ripped off the iPhone all the way down to the icons. Only geeks can tell the difference.
Never another Samsung product. Never.
I’m a Korean-American and have never owned a Samsung product and never will. I visit Korea on business often and it’s funny to see how so many native Koreans also hate Samsung with a passion. If others don’t outright hate Samsung, they are ambivalent and really couldn’t care less about the company one way or the other.
Samsung (the conglomerate that also includes Samsung Electronics) accounts for around 20% of the entire South Korean economy. That is so absurd. It’s literally a Samsung country, not Korean. You can’t walk around downtown for a few minutes without seeing the Samsung logo blaring at your face.
The Chairmain CEO of the conglomerate was convicted of tax evasion when he is the richest person in Korea with a net worth over $10 billion. He was pardoned by the president of South Korea because Samsung “means so much” to the nation’s economy? Can you believe that? The guy is above the law.
And then, recently, this CEO (the youngest son of the founder of Samsung) was embroiled in an ugly public spat with his siblings about the family inheritance. The Korean public was outraged and disgusted over the richest family in Korea fighting over another $700 million or whatever in a very acrimonious manner. Finally, the CEO had to issue a public apology for this disgraceful display.
So, this gives you an idea of what kind of company Samsung is. Samsung needs to be split up into dozens of different companies. They do have a lot of talent there but it’s just not in the huge conglomerate structure’s DNA to be creative and innovative. Trust me; there are many Koreans in Korea who hope that Samsung gets its ass handed to them on this case.
Interesting insight. Wondering if Samsung is like pre-break up AT&T.
Nice, thanks for setting the record straight on Korean views. America or Korea or China or Anywhere, big money concentrated absolutely corrupts people and governments. We are all the worse for it, except for the richest few.
Smart South Koreans hate Samsung because they know it is corrupt and has corrupted their government to the highest levels. Samsung owns South Korea.
As a person of Korean descent, this is the one thing that bothers me more than anything else in Korea. The “chaebol” family-owned conglomerates literally do own Korea. Heck, the current president of South Korea was a president at Hyundai.
It’s so funny to see the iHaters in America root for Samsung against Apple. They have no clue on what kind of company Samsung is. Oh yeah, Samsung is a company that truly cares about fair competition compared to the evil, closed, and proprietary Apple. Laughable and pathetic…
What a lot of people are missing here is that Apple’s trade dress claims are for the SET of icons, not just one or two. If Samsung just copied one or two (intentionally or not) there would probably no conflict here. It’s the fact that so many of their icons replicate the Apple look and feel that Apple is taking an issue with.
And yes, there ARE people who think their Samsung phone is the exact same product as an iPhone.
Why did Google, Samsung, etc. try to replicate the iPhone so closely and why do they continue to do so?
In order to give the false impression that they are selling something equivalent to the iPhone when they most definitely are not.
That is deceitful to its core. They are stealing not only the time and treasure that Apple put into creating the iPhone/iPad/iOS, they are also stealing the massive investment Apple put into marketing and educating the general public about what’s a real smartphone/tablet/mobile OS.
That is why it’s wrong. And that is why Apple should do everything in its power to punish Google, Samsung, etc. through legal and business means.
Samsung could argue that a car with four wheels, a house with windows and doors, a toilet with a seat cover, etc. can’t be patented and icons for phoning are the same thing. Except they didn’t use Apple icons for stick quotes, weather, browsing, etc, so the phone icon is theft. As for the morally bankrupt, billions of poorly paid people that never created anything in their life other than children, garbage, pollution and headaches for their bosses/spouses/children, etc. have NO clue that buying a product that copies others’ designs is morally bankrupt. Wal-Mart isn’t a copy of K-Mart, as is Target and other big discount chains? Without those described above, Wal-Mart couldn’t have killed K-Mart. Most Samsung owners I know would be happy to copy others if they thought they could get rich by doing so. Have the finalmpusrchasers pay a fine or a tax for buying goods from copied dedigns and the copying of others’ designs will stop.
☏
WHITE TELEPHONE
Unicode: U+260F, UTF-8: E2 98 8F
Problem solved, was that so hard Samsung?!?!?!
Damn Samsung! Is your face as red as your hands yet?
You are soooo SCREWED! 😆