That one ? You're sure :
Oops, different angles tell a different story. From the side, no similarity. From the back, no similarity. Do I need to go into details here ?
From the front ? Only if you believe the bevel is actually chrome and not blackish. It's also a different shape (it's not flush with the screen like the 3GS's and 3G's bevel). The home button is quite different and there are 2 extra capacitive buttons on the front. Not to mention the big SAMSUNG right there... It's also much bigger than the iPhone :
The UI is the same ? Not really :
Where's the icon grid ? Notice also the page indicators, while round and in a line, they are completely different from iOS. This is the homescreen, no icon grid there. Only a dock with widgets. Sure can't confuse that with iOS...
Again, if you go outside the media hype on this story, you can see this isn't going to be an easy win for Apple. And the Samsung Galaxy S i9000 is only 1 model of Samsung Galaxy S line-up, the other phones are quite different and if you mistake them for iPhones, I have bad news for you :
Epic :
Fascinate :
Captivate :
Vibrant (this is the only other model based on the i9000) :
So please guys, again, go beyond the Apple cherry picked evidence pictures go and try to look at this objectively. This isn't the blatant copying it's made out to be.
In this case, the argument is reversed. For the phone icon, Apple employed a commonly used shape and color that users could easily recognize. If anyone wants to argue that a company could've used a different shape or color, then Apple should be high on their complaint list.
Starting with the first giant handset, nearly every cell phone since has used a green phone emblem. Heck, HTC and Palm both used a left leaning green phone on their Send keys for years before the iPhone came along:
Translate that key to a touchscreen, and the most reasonable thing to do is make it a green button with a white icon. As you can see below, in fact that was done in at least one example back in 2004 on Windows Mobile.
What I find more interesting is that Apple first demoed the iPhone in Jan 2007 using the all green icon below. But they did not try to trademark that one, probably because it was obvious and already used. Instead, they trademarked a version with background stripes on it, something quite different from what everyone else used, including Samsung.
Thanks, that's a very fascinating legal concept.
It's like creatures in nature that ape the look of other things in order to get the prey to come closer
And yet.... how does this "initial interest" line of thinking jibe with other cases where the name was enough to avoid trouble? For instance, the artificial sweetener case cited in that article. Or other ones where just having the name (e.g. Excedrin) large enough on similar packaging was enough.
In other words, if someone is out to buy an iPhone, would they be confused or sidetracked enough to buy the Samsung instead? Hmm... I would say yes, if the iPhone wasn't available on that carrier! But otherwise?
Before you blindly follow the Apple haters, perhaps you should inform yourself better regarding the details of this action. There was never any dispute that Apple was using Nokia IP for its connection standards, as every company using 3G technology is required to do. The dispute was over what constituted fair compensation for the use of that IP. Apple claimed that it was not offered terms comparable to what other manufacturers were offered, and that this constituted anticompetitive practice, especially with regards to the use of an industry standard (one could certainly question how one company could be allowed to hold a patent on an agreed-upon industry standard, but that is another discussion). No judgment was made in this case, as the two companies settled, the terms of which were not made public (it appears that the dollar figures bandied about were concocted by "analysts"). For all we know, Nokia may have licensed the tech to Apple under the terms that Apple had requested.
