U.S. Ban on Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales Goes into Effect as Apple Posts Bond

I'm sure Tim Cook pulled the $2.6 from the petty cash drawer. ;)

This is stupid! I have an iPad and love it, but fail to see how the Tab is remotely a copy in any way. For one, it's nowhere near as good in my book. What about this thing did they find to be so close to an iPad? It's flat? It's thin? It's a rectangle? All tablets will be. (Except for the "The Pyramid" :p)

I don't get it. I agree, this all should end. Apple looks petty here.

Edit: Does anybody have a link showing the comparison of both units highlighting the parts that Apple claims to be infringing? I'd like to be a bit more educated on the subject.

Good question. I don’t have a link to specific claims which are probably pretty complicated—but definitely NOT just basic things like being thin rectangles.

Samsung truly has copied Apple really blatantly time and time again, undeniably leveraging Apple’s designers to prevent the time/expense/risk of doing their own work from scratch; and whether that’s legally significant or not (seemingly it is, sometimes) there are some links showing that. For starters:

http://photos.appleinsider.com/samsungvsapple.081911.jpg

http://dcurt.is/chromebox-samsung (very recent!)

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/09/29/apple-samsung-copycat-2/

Another thing to remember: look at all the other tablets that do NOT use Apple styling. Apple’s way is not the “only way” to design a tablet, or a charger, or a UI, or packaging, etc. etc.

And certainly others besides Samsung have been equally unoriginal. Win or lose, Apple can hardly sit back and make it easy to get away with. That would be a VERY stupid and dangerous precedent for Apple to set.

And most importantly for we users: Wouldn’t we like real choice in the market, and competition rather than lazy trend-riding? Wouldn’t we rather see Samsung be more completely original and innovative? What more-unique tablets have we missed out on because Samsung didn’t put more of their profits into original designs? (Example: would Microsoft’s Surface be as interesting if they’d gone Samsung’s route of “cloning Apple as closely as we can get away with?”)

There is a much bigger idea here than just the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Apple is trying to set a precedent to show to Samsung and other companies that they cant steal Apple's trade dress. Apple has put a ton of R&D into all of their products, and now they should just let someone come along and copy it? I don't think so.

People are saying whats the big deal? The big deal is that for a good portion of people, they don't know the difference. There are people who see that it looks like an ipad so it must be a samsung ipad. Some people just aren't as educated as the people who visit this forum, so those people are easily deceived by Samsung's obvious ripoff.

To put it in other terms, what if Hyundai (another Korean company) decided they were going to build a 90% ripoff of the Corvette. While we can all agree that for the most part all cars have 4 wheels, a windshield, door handles an engine etc, we can see that the designs that people can come up with for cars are endless, and therefore Chevrolet would have a valid lawsuit on their hands and Hyundai would probably loose and most people would think Chevy had the right to defend their brand and looks of their car. So then why do people love to hate on Apple when they set out to do just the same, defend what they spent their time, money and effort on.

It just doesn't make sense. Apple should defend what is theirs without people hating on them.

Ouch. :D

I wish this would all end...

Good question. I don’t have a link to specific claims which are probably pretty complicated—but definitely NOT just basic things like being thin rectangles.

For this injunction, the only thing being considered is the Apple Design Patent (http://www.google.com/patents/USD504889). See below. (It's very much like the German injunction last year over that EU design registration.)

Samsung truly has copied Apple really blatantly time and time again, undeniably leveraging Apple’s designers to prevent the time/expense/risk of doing their own work from scratch;

Samsung (and others) had already come up with that same frontal design on their own in a 2006 picture frame, albeit with a much deeper back.

Apple, however, made the shape popular. Following a popular trend is different from copying a previously unknown design.

and whether that’s legally significant or not (seemingly it is, sometimes) there are some links showing that.

None of those examples show close copies, but general similarity in shapes.

To paraphrase The Princess Bride, I don't think "copy" means what you think it does :)