As the Samsung vs Apple patent dispute heads to trial in the coming weeks, Apple is planning to build its case by proving how Samsung deliberately knew they were copying the iPhone and iPad's design. In fact, Google had told Samsung that the Galaxy Tabs were "too similar" to the iPad and demanded a distinguishable design.

“Samsung’s documents show the similarity of Samsung’s products is no accident or, as Samsung would have it, a ‘natural evolution,’” Apple argues in its brief. “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 will rely on Samsung’s own documents, which tell an unambiguous story.”

Among those documents are a few purported to show that Samsung not only deliberately copied certain characteristics of the iPhone and iPad, but was also explicitily warned away from doing so by various third parties, including Google. Below, a sampling of some of Apple’s more compelling points excerpted from its brief.

    In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”
    In 2011, Samsung’s own Product Design Group noted that it is “regrettable” that the Galaxy S “looks similar” to older iPhone models.
    As part of a formal, Samsung-sponsored evaluation, famous designers warned Samsung that the Galaxy S “looked like it copied the iPhone too much,” and that “innovation is needed.” The designers explained that the appearance of the Galaxy S “[c]losely resembles the iPhone shape so as to have no distinguishable elements,” and “[a]ll you have to do is cover up the Samsung logo and it’s difficult to find anything different from the iPhone.”

Damning stuff — as presented in this context, anyway. And it will be interesting to see how Samsung’s legal team rebuts it. That said, Samsung does have some ammunition of its own. Specifically, some 2006 internal design presentations that outline a mobile UI similar to the one that ultimately debuted on the iPhone, a handy before-and-after-the-iPhone-handset comparison and some internal Apple emails that it claims suggest “Apple’s ‘revolutionary’ iPhone design was derived from the designs of a competitor — Sony.”

In nowadays's mobile industry, really hard to define "copy", especially after the iPhone and iPad were born. However, Samsung is also a huge giant, what card will it show out. Let's wait and see.

via iclarified via allthingsd