Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), si Samsung they have many lawsuits open in courts around the world and Apple has already managed to block several products of the Korean company. Apple had the greatest success in blocking the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet that it says infringes patents that protect design and functionality elements of the iPad. One of the designers who worked on the development of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 said that the process of designing the tablet began in October 2009, 4 months before the presentation of the iPad tablet, but the product from Samsung arrived on the market only in 2011.
Samsung industrial designer Jin Soo Kim said Wednesday that his work on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 began in October 2009, prior to Apple's announcement of the original iPad. Kim also made reference to a Jan 6. 2010 email that discussed work that had already taken place on that tablet. The goal of the project, Kim said, was to have the maximum display size in the least possible area. Now, this hasn't come up in court, but Samsung actually changed its design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 after its February 2011 unveiling at Mobile World Congress and following Apple's announcement of the iPad 2. By March 2011, Samsung was showing off a slimmer design.
Samsung even touted the changes it made to the product at its booth at the CTIA trade show, where the thinner design was shown.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet was launched in the summer of 2011, however the final design of the product would be different from the one presented just a few months before at an international conference, the decision to change it being taken after Apple presented the iPad 2. Although the designer claims that there were several versions of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, some with a thin profile, the decision to change the design of the product immediately after the presentation of the iPad 2 clearly denotes the fact that Apple's tablet strongly influenced the decision regarding the final design of the Tab.
Kim now noted that the company had both a thicker and thinner design for the Tab 10.1. He's now going into the history I mentioned, noting that it was first shown at Mobile World Congress with the thicker design. Samsung never sold the thicker product in the US, Kim testified. Kim noted 80 different tablets were announced at Mobile World Congress and the company felt it didn't have enough competitive advantage so it decided to redesign the product. "We decided we would produce the lightest and thinnest tablet in the world," Kim said.
The similarities between the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2 were not only seen by Apple, but also by Google, who asked the Asians to change the design so that it was no longer so similar to that of the iPad 2, but of course this request was ignored. Those from Google did not want to produce devices that would copy Apple's terminals in any way, but its partners did not have the same presence of mind and did as they thought best, and now they are fighting with Apple in the courts.
McIlhenny is pointing to a Samsung email that references a meeting with Google at which that company recommends changes to Samsung's tablet. "Since it is too similar to Apple, make it noticeably different," the email said, suggesting perhaps a landscape, rather than portrait, orientation.
A second document talks about the design similarity for the S series and the iPhone and, later, says that "Google is demanding distinguishable design vis-a-vis the ipad for the P3 (the Galaxy Tab 10.1)."
