Apple claims Samsung knew its Galaxy line took its design cues from Apple and was warned by Google

With the Apple v. Samsung patent district court battle starting next Monday, an unredacted copy of Apple's trial brief shows that the latter plans on showing that Samsung knew that the design of its Galaxy devices copied those of the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad and was even the subject of an internal discussion inside the Korean based manufacturer.

Apple claims that it will show that Samsung's own documents not only show that the company deliberately copied Apple's designs, but that various third parties including Google warned Samsung not to copy the Apple iPhone and Apple iPad. One of the points that Apple is expected to bring out at trial is a warning from Google to Samsung that it's P1 and P3 tablets (Samsung GALAXY Tab and Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 respectively) were "too similar" to the Apple iPad and demanded "distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3."

Last year, Samsung's Product Design Group said that it is "regrettable" that the Samsung Galaxy S "looks similar" to older models of the Apple iPhone. Also, during an evaluation sponsored by Samsung, some famous designers said that the Samsung Galaxy S "looked like it copied the iPhone too much,” and that "innovation is needed." If there ever was a smoking gun, it might be this comment from a designer, "[a]ll you have to do is cover up the Samsung logo and it’s difficult to find anything different from the iPhone."

"Samsung’s documents show the similarity of Samsung’s products is no accident or, as Samsung would have it, a ‘natural evolution. Rather, it results from Samsung’s deliberate plan to free-ride on the iPhone’s and iPad’s extraordinary success by copying their iconic designs and intuitive user interface."-Apple's trial brief

Earlier Wednesday, we showed you some comments from Samsung about how Apple got the design for the Apple iPhone from a story about Sony in the public domain. Samsung said that Apple could not have sold one iPhone without stealing technology from Samsung. It's gonna be like the 13th round of the famous 1978 heavyweight bout between Ken Norton and Larry Holmes, two heavyweights seeking the title, both in the center of the ring letting punches fly, trying to inflict as much damage as they can without regard to their own protection.

source:AllThingsD