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Apple Requests Sanctions Against Samsung Delivering Default Victory in Design Patent Case
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Well if they ever do, let's hope they don't file a design patent for it that looks like it was taken straight from George Lucas' work.
Notice the judge wouldn't allow it. Using fiction as the foundation for a prior art case is comedic and buffoonish.
Sure, but I don't want to pay more than 999$ for one, I'd take a Acer branded one for 299$.
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Correlation does not imply causation. Have you read the reason Judge Grewal disallowed the evidence, the ruling Koh upheld to prevent Samsung from using it ?
Since Design Patents are strictly ornamental, then it seems obvious that the ornamental design of a movie prop could be used as prior art.
In fact, science fiction movie props themselves often get Design Patents. For example, many Star Trek uniforms, ships and devices have Design Patents.
So if you made a real phaser with the exact same look as an ST hand weapn, you could very well be infringing upon that device's Design Patent. Of course, you would probably have the utility (functional) patent sewed up.
The upshot is, if movie/TV props can get Design Patents, then they should of course also be able to serve as prior art. The copyright lawyer blogs I've read agree.
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So why did Judge Koh prohibit "2001" and "The Tomorrow People" props? Because Samsung had only previously used those tablets in a general design history background. They had never explicitly said they wanted to use them as part of any attempt to invalidate the iPad Design Patent. (Although that would seem an obvious use to you and me.) Therefore she ruled that including them now as invalidation evidence would be unfair to Apple who wouldn't have time to prepare opposition.
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It was fortunate for Samsung that she did prohibit "2001".
It wouldn't have been much of a defence, the biggest problem with Samsung's claim of prior art to those being tablets in 2001, is that there is an overwhelmingly compelling argument that those weren't tablets at all, merely screens on a table.
Of course the special effects in the movie version of 2001 used screens under the table, because there was no flat screen technology at the time. However, how they had to film the effect back then doesn't matter.
In the book, they were described as thin displays that could be carried around, and used to view news and be a videophone. That pretty much describes a tablet. Even its name is semi-familiar: it was called a "NewsPad".
The design of the tablet in The Tomorrow People TV show was even closer to what Apple would claim over three decades later as their own design: rounded rectangle, black flat screen, even borders, metal trim:
Contrast that to Apple's idea of a tablet back then:
Didn't they use something like that in the medical bay of the old Star Trek t.v. shows? I could be wrong though.
Good memory. I bet you're thinking of the electronic clipboards in the old show. Especially Yeoman Rand, who kept making Kirk sign hers with a stylus. Ahem. But others used them a lot, too, like McCoy, Spock and Uhuru:
the patent was granted off a drawing which is art, so prior art should be allowed to disprove it
My point was not about the special effects of the time (the effect was achieved by back projection), more that it can be argued that the screens we see, are not computer tablets on the table, but are screens built into or onto the table.
No it doesn't describe a tablet computer, it would describe a portable TV's with a video call ability.
There is nothing in the film (and it is the film, not the book that Samsung made reference to) to suggest that what we see on the table are tablet computers at all. We see no evidence of either Bowman or Poole interacting with the device for example.
Nor do we see them being carried around either, instead what do Bowman and Poole carry around with them in their day-to-day chores on Discovery? They carry clipboards around. With paper on them.
In fact, there is no evidence of either tablet or touch technology in the film whatsoever, with the two modes of interacting with technology being either pressing physical buttons or by voice recognition.
Yes that's exactly what I was thinking of and even though I'm no legal expert and will not try to interpret the meaning of all this all the tablets make me think of that board from Star Trek.
I understand. However, both in the book _and_ the script, they're portable. For example, the 1964 Kubrick script has this cut scene where Bowman is looking for the Newspad that he had left behind somewhere:
BOWMAN ENTERS POD
BAY AND CONTINUES
HIS SEARCH. SUDDENLY
HE FINDS IT - HIS
ELECTRONIC NEWSPAD.
HE EXITS POD BAY.
Note that it said "his". Each astronaut had their own.
As for them laying on the tablet, even in the movie you can see that they overhang the edge. But I can see where people might get the idea that they were built in, if they didn't know the back story.
More like a 1968-ish idea of some as yet uninvented newspaper websites, with their own ids (what we call URLs today):
Neat. Even had the ability to zoom in on page sections!
Again, scenes were cut. The original script had at least a couple of spots where they would sit down with their Newspads in different places.
That's true about the lack of touch, but their input method isn't nearly as important as the general shape and idea. Other tablet concepts and early models that use a stylus were allowed as prior art (the 1994 Fidler newspad and the 2000 TC1000).
Cheers!
But they don't appear to be in the film. The book is irrelevant. Samsung made no reference to the book in their submission. They made reference to what is shown in the film.
We have no idea whether what is shown on the table in the film is actually the same item as what is described in the script iteration that was filmed or in the book, because other than that scene, we never see them again, we see no interaction with them, we certainly never see them being carried around, and we never hear either Bowman or Poole make reference to them.
And the only functionality that we see them being used for is as a television type device receiving television broadcasts (see the scene where we see the screen showing 'Next Scheduled Transmission...'). That is it.
That is your supposition.
Of course it could equally mean that what we see on screen are actually simply personal televisions screens, and what is being described is actually an early Teletext type concept, which given the description of how such devices function by Clarke above, and how knowing Teletext functioned, is the more probable explanation.
Teletext had zoom too.
What was cut, what originally scripted etc is irrelevant. Samsung reference what is shown in the movie. In their submission they stated:
Samsung Submission said:
It's clear what Samsung's lawyers are trying to suggest, but there is simply NO evidence in the film whatsoever to suggest that these are personal tablet computers.
It is important, because with a demonstrable lack of evidence of interaction between Bowman and Poole with the alleged tablets, of them being carried around, or even the slightest evidence of them having functionality beyond that of a television then, it's entirely possible to argue that they are not tablet computers as Samsung allege, but are in fact simply portable television screens.
However I agree that The Tomorrow People is potentially far more troublesome for Apple, but as we can see from our discussion, a short clip, never mind a still photo, is not enough on its own to suggest that something is a personal tablet computer when in fact it could quite easily be something entirely different, and with different functionality.
That "People of Tomorrow" bit doesn't resemble an iPad. At a glance or under scrutiny everyone will know difference
For one, it's a square. Two, it's a brick. Three, it looks zero like the drawings Apple patented.
Samsung intended to copy the look and feel of the iPad to confuse customers, otherwise they would have sold even less tablets
For one, it's a square. Two, it's a brick. Three, it looks zero like the drawings Apple patented.
Samsung intended to copy the look and feel of the iPad to confuse customers, otherwise they would have sold even less tablets
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2009 Q1EX would be more appropriate to show the evolution of Samsung's design.
This was released a full year prior to the original iPad.
One could argue they were refining their own design and slimming it down.
We live in a 3 dimensional world, and your example still doesn't show any DNA path to where Samsung designs ended after the iPad was released.
Nice little picture you got there.
http://www.androidauthority.com/behold-samsungs-ipad-made-in-2006-21278/
There's 101 reasons why Apple lawyers would eat that reasoning alive.
The internet is reaching...
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Easy enough...
