Must Read: Apple to Congress: We do not use 'tax gimmicks'

Topic: Tablets

Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

Summary: In Australia, Apple's lawyers alleged that Samsung has designed its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to look, feel and operate like the iPad and iPad 2.

Luke Hopewell

By Luke Hopewell |

In arguments to the New South Wales Federal Court this morning, Apple's lawyers alleged that Samsung has designed its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to look, feel and operate like the iPad and iPad 2 and, in this instance, has been caught in the act.

Apple Australia originally took Samsung to court in Australia in August, claiming that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringed on patents used for the creation of the iPad. Samsung, on the other hand, claimed that Apple was basing its case on the US version of the device and offered up three Australian models for study, agreeing to push back the release of the device to market. After thorough study, Apple Australia claims that the devices it received were hurriedly stripped of contested features in an attempt to dodge the litigation and enable the release of the product to market.

Apple Australia has today limited the scope of its case to three infringing patents, including the design of the touchscreen, the operation of multi-touch and the heuristic capability of the device — that is, how a device reacts to touch, multi-touch and "imprecise inputs" — as well as selective rejection or the way a device recognises, identifies and rejects inputs.

For more on this story, read Samsung accused of designing iPad clone on ZDNet Australia.

Topics: Tablets, Apple, Hardware, iPad, Mobility, Samsung

Luke Hopewell

About Luke Hopewell

A fresh recruit onto the tech journalism battlefield, Luke Hopewell is eager to see some action. After a tour of duty in the belly of the Telstra beast, he is keen to report big stories on the enterprise beat. Drawing on past experience in radio, print and magazine, he plans to ask all the tough questions you want answered.

Contact

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

21 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

    I have a great deal of sympathy for Apple. Right now, they are in precisely the position that the company felt it deserved to be in the late 1980s, early 1990s after the introduction of the Macintosh and the GUI revolution that followed. At the time Microsoft waltzed in and stole the spotlight (and sales) by aping many of Apple's innovations and teaming with hardware manufacturers to sell a package at a price that greatly undercut Apple's own products.<br><br>With the iPad Apple is clearly showing that they don't intend to repeat the mistakes that led to Mac OS being eclipsed by Windows. Apple is aggressively courting the lower end consumer market by pricing the entry model iPad at a point that's proven difficult for competitors to match (Apple's failure to target this market from the very start no doubt contributed to its loss of Market share to Wintel). And they're aggressively protecting their intellectual property, as evidenced by the company's tough stand against Samsung and manufacturers of Android powered devices.<br><br>That said, I think that the tablet market is far too significant to allow a single company to dominate. Aboslute power corrupts absolutely, and beneficent dictatorships eventually succomb to greed. I for one was really gung ho about getting an iPad until Apple instituted it's policy of demanding a 30% cut off the top, from in-app purchases. It was a strategy designed to drive content providers out of business (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Netflix etc. cannot make a profit if they have to hand Apple a 30% cut of gross receipts on any book or movie that's sold on the iPad). The tablet market needs true competition, and a world in which Apple is the only game in town is not a healthy one for consumers.
    dsf3g
    Reply Vote

    • Nice rewrite of history. Please don't make Apple out to be

      @dsf3g
      the nice little kid on the block that was taken advantage of.

      [i]At the time Microsoft waltzed in and stole the spotlight (and sales) by aping many of Apple's innovations and teaming with hardware manufacturers to sell a package at a price that greatly undercut Apple's own products.[/i]

      That's a rewrite of history, and just an attempt to make an excuse for Apple's mistake early on.

      MS didn't work with OEM's to undercut Apple, Apple really wasn't an issue then, as the same thing existed then as did now: PC OEM's are doing the pricing, as they're competing with each other. Apple keeps their prices high as the have no OS X competition. (They would have had a much larger market early on had they lowered their pricing to compete wit PC OEMs, but they didn't)
      William Farrell
      Reply Vote

      • History

        @William Farrell
        Didn't Apple lose that lawsuit over the look and feel against Microsoft? But I believe they were successful against others with less legal (financial) resources. It is a pity others were blocked, it helped Microsoft to dominate. After that many years they focus on lawyers again. The patent and design game. Let's see if that will end in a better way than in 1994.

        Microsoft used (and uses) other methods to dominate the market than OEM competition. Many are very well documented during litigations. Starting with the civil anti-trust actions of 1998.
        somereader
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @William Farrell
        I don't see it as a re-write of history but obviously not all the facts are presented. Apple did have the superior interface and you are probably correct, had Apple licensed their OS to OEM's then they may have succeeded in kicking IBM's amd MS's butt but that is not guarranteed. Either way, I don't think this is the best argument for saying basically you have to license your software to every Topm, Dick and Harry OEM or suffer failure. I like companies that try and make it on their own two feet. I like companies like Apple and Red Hat who only try to perfect their part of the industry. Red Hat with the OS layer and Apple with the hardware/OS layer. That still leaves plenty of room for companies to put their software/services on top without the fear of having to sell up ro compete with the monopolist which is what MS became and Google is fast becoming.
        global.philosopher
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

      @dsf3g <br>Revisionist history re-write.<br><br>The first proper PDA was the Psion Organiser, beating the Apple Newton.
      neilpost
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @neilpost Your point or relevance to the conversation is?
        non-biased
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

      I do not understand why taking a company's design and improving on it or aiming it to a different market should be wrong - it is in consumer's best interests. It is only because of the competition that apple is wooing the lower end of the market - anyway I would have thought that a different screensize would represent a substantial difference - I bought my galaxy SII mainly because apple dont make a phone screen big enough for me to read comfortably.

      Compeition of similar products is important to drive down excessive company profits and prevent anyone from cornering the market. It ensures that consumers will get the best choice and price - these companies should realise that their only main purposes in life are to provide employment and to meet consumer needs. It seems that profit for shareholders is becoming many companies reason for existance and it is why the world is in such a financial mess right now!
      cymru999
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @cymru999 <br>I think the issue is not one or two instances of copying but Samsung seem to have taken copying Apple to a whole new level. A lot of people do not realise the level of copying Samsung has resorted or are being misled by those who keep coming up with the "Apple have tried patenting the rectangle" argument. Samsung have mimicked Apple more than just the shape of the handset...but I'll leave that up to the readers to research. Samsung should not be rewarded for being a lazy OEM and simply copying the market leader....that doesn't benefit the consumer unless the only thing the consumer cares about is price...which many do.
        global.philosopher
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @cymru999 it is neither an "improvement" nor a "different" market... the same people buying a Galaxy tab are in the same market as an ipad, and the Galaxy tab is nothing but a very bad copy of an iPad... there isnt' some new hardware in the galaxy tab that is some sort of improvement... actually it is much worse, the battery life is horrific......

        the OS in the Galaxy tab is also not an improvement, it literally is still a work in progress since even Google told them that the android OS was not ready for tablets yet, and now with 3.x they sure showed it still isn't ready by the horrific use of GUI and the horrible battery life. (there is a reason why Galaxy (and all other Android tablets) are not selling) and it has to do with the word "horrible"...

        which is giving the Tablet space a bad taste in people's mouth that uses Galaxy tabs, similar to how pen based tablets before gave a very bad taste in people's mouth....

        the App experience with the Galaxy? an improvement? only if you come from a different planet and think the hand full of native apps for the Galaxy tab (or any other Android tablet) is any comparison to the 50,000 native iPad apps.... and by the way, the only reason you would buy a tablet is for the apps... calling the few handful of apps and improvement over the 50,000 native ipad apps is you joking with us right?

        but i guess you will find out what "improvement" means when the court rules....
        honkj
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @cymru999
        Continuing ur train of thought, Apple didnt invent d tablet, neither did they invent the smart phone. All they did was to copy and improve, yet, because no one took them to court for it we have better smart phones and tablets. Unfortunately, they want to be the only player in the field. Most of what Apple is doing now to their customers and developers would have landed Microsoft in antitrust court faster than u could spell MS. notice how MS can now bundle IE with Windows once again without anyone screaming? That's because Apple has shown that they are worse.
        oscardetoy@...
        Reply Vote

    • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

      @dsf3g <br>I think a lot of Apples actions of late are exactly because they saw how their ideas can be copied and then made accesible to cheaper Asian OEM's to implement. MS did this in the 90's and really hurt Apple financially and now Google are doing it again...only this time Apple have no intention of taking it up the pipehole a second time round.<br>I see no reason to back companies like Samsung who take a free ride from a company like Google who basically watched what Apple was doing (Schmidt on Apples board) and decided to buy into the market (acquire Android) and then undercut them (basically license Android for free).
      global.philosopher
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @global.philosopher <br><br>In the late 1980's a company called Franklin produced a computer called the ACE. It was basically an Apple II+ clone. It was this experience that led Apple to add a bunch of proprietary hardware and software components to the Macintosh. They wanted to create a machine hat could not be cloned. So Apple is a company that learns from its "mistakes" and tries to make sure they don't happen a second time.<br><br>Ultimately, though, I think Apple's IP war against Android will fail. The new computing paradigm (and I'm a big believer in tablets laregly pushing Wintel desktops out of the home) is too important and too huge a market for the courts to allow a single player to dominate. The only reason Microsoft has been allowed to dominate the OS market 'till now is that they don't produce their own hardware, and their problematic monopoly in Operating Systems has also given rise to a massive, tremendously competitive industry of PC manufacturers and software developers that build on top of Windows. If Microsoft had tried to follow Apple's current business model in the 1990's (selling the hardware, the OS and operating the only software storefront) I suspect the Justice Department would have split Microsoft up.<br><br>In some ways, a thriving community of Android competitors is what Apple needs to not gain the scrutinous eye of the Justice Deaprtment.
        dsf3g
        Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @dsf3g
        I think your take on Microsoft and Apple's business model has the right of it. Microsoft didn't go as far as asking for 30% of the sale cost from applications developers yet they ended up in antitrust court. Apple is doing much worse than MS did yet no one is taking them up on it. We even go as far as claiming they invented gadgets (like d tablet n the smartphone) which existed before Apple's first iPod was even built. I think apply is just trying to stifle the competition using 'legal' means especially when you consider that Android phones are now more popular than the iPhone.
        oscardetoy@...
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

    Apple didn't invent GUIs (Xerox did).
    Patent system has been broke for some time now.
    We are just watching (and paying for) the results of it.
    jrlambert
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

      @jrlambert
      exactly... Apple and MS both went to xerox and got the idea of a gui from them. Apple fanboys will always argue that MS stole it from Apple.
      brad1000
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

        @brad1000 You got that statement half write.
        non-biased
        Reply Vote

  • sammy do something on ur own

    @dsf3g . Unfortunately there is a bunch of Apple hater here with all the nonsense logics. As per the Wintel story just see which company is the most valuable? Windows is & always was the most unstable OS. As far as Sammy is concerned, they are shameless copycats & Apple have every right to protect its intellectual property otherwise just open copying everything from Car designs to latest technologies.
    aliasadadm
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

      @aliasadadm ...slurp that Kool-Aid...
      Feldwebel Wolfenstool
      Reply Vote

  • In such disputes, BOTH PARTIES should be barred from sales...

    ...until the dispute is legally settled. EH?
    Feldwebel Wolfenstool
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Samsung accused of designing iPad clone in Australia

    AHAHAHAHAH!!!

    The distortion field is getting stronger every day even without Steve "I invented EVERYTHING" Jobs in command.
    H3llb0und
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close