More than 100 designers, including luminaries like Calvin Klein and Alexander Wang, signed an amicus brief explaining why they believe Samsung owes Apple hundreds of millions of dollars for copying the look of the now-iconic iPhone.
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Samsung is now under fire after filing for a smartwatch patent using Apple Watch figures. To give Apple all of its profits associated with Samsung phones found to infringe those patents, it argued, would be akin to forcing the infringer of a patented design for an automobile cup holder to pay its entire profits on a auto that used it.
Whatever the case may be, even more recently – as in yesterday – a new Samsung patent application was discovered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database, detailing a format for attaching wrist straps to a smartwatch.
“Has Samsung been caught with Apple Watch drawings in its patents?”
As any iPhone fan will tell you, Samsung has been repeatedly blamed (and sued) for gathering inspiration from Apple’s products.
Apple/USPTOSamsung had a smartwatch on sale before Apple did, but it still seems like the Korean giant is taking cues from its rival in Cupertino. Only the other day Samsung used the launch of its latest high-end smartphone to poke fun at Apple for some reason.This was just the latest in a long, long line of attack marketing ploys the company has used in its fight for market position.
This feels genuinely like Samsung is passing the buck back to Apple and simply inviting readers to take a look at the existing hardware (i.e. the Apple Watch) in order for the great features of the Samsung device to “become apparent”.
IBTimes UK has contacted Samsung for a comment and will update this article if we receive one.
The digital crown, button and rear sensors of apple’s Watch can be seen here.
Two of the drawings submitted by the Korean firm clearly show what appears to be an Apple Watch.
In May 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington upheld the 2012 patent infringement verdict. Apple won $548 million in damages from Samsung for infringing on its iPhone patents, but Samsung is appealing $399 million of the amount that covered the designs of the iPhone’s rounded-corner front face, bezel and grid of icons.
Samsung asked the Supreme Court to review the case, calling the damages awarded excessive.
The case is expected to result in a landmark decision on whether total profits from an unlawfully copied design should be assessed as a penalty, in the first major design patent case at the top U.S. court in over a century.
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In June, the DOJ recommended that the case go back to the lower courts for more litigation.
