With Samsung running out of its allotted testimony time of 25 hours by mid-afternoon, Apple took advantage of its two-hour lead by stacking the stand with a whirlwind of appearances from its design experts including Ravin Balakrishnan and Karan Singh. They testified against Samsung claims of prior art potentially invalidating Apple’s patents.
Bressler started by going through the 383 Samsung patent and noted the main design did not include a cover and had no bezel. It also did not have a substantial differentiating border, unlike the iPhone. He also dismissed the claims of the KR 547 patent, a candy bar-style phone prototype reminiscent of the LG Prada, with a wider width. He said elements of the 547 patent, including the concentric rings on the front of the phone, the black design and the small square form factor showed that they designs were not substantially similar to the iPhone form factor to show Apple had copied them.
He also analyzed the LG Prada phone to break up any idea it resembles the iPhone. He noted there is no continuous surface space because there are silver pop-up button at the base of the phone. Bressler also noted “these are different enough patents that cannot be seen as prior reference.” He also doesn’t think the reference patents could be mashed up to create a single innovative gadget by another company. The phones look very different from one another on the presentation slide.
Regarding the iPad, he said Apple design patents are dictated by function instead of competitive products. Every feature, from a rectangular shape, to rounded corners and the flat-font surface are based on research and design. Bressler focused on the elongated lozenge-shaped speaker slot and the location of the speaker, as they were not the same on the competing products in question.
Samsung wanted to ask a couple of questions of follow up, but they were mostly irrelevant. Bressler ended his testimony with a smile.
Dr. Karan Singh followed. Singh is the touchscreen expert who previously detailed the technical elements of “prior art” gadgets such as HP’s iPAQ PDA and its tile-based user interface. This time he talked about the anticipation of certain claim evidences and elements within the UI structures.
Would any of the Launch Pad make the claim correct and would they operate as a different function? Singh said no. He assertively killed the testimony of Samsung witness Stephen Gray, in particular on Gray’s understanding of the nested tile structures of the Samsung patent at issue as a direct descendent of the iPhone UI. His objection was dramatic. He said it is not a viable precursor to the iPhone.
Next, Singh moved to strike the 915 patent, which is the Diamond Touch projector system, and not a single contained gadget. “Creating an event object actually present by one of the six elements” is the only way to know how to copy the model, Singh said. Singh said the Diamond Touch is not a touch sensitive display. Instead, it is plastic touch surface on which you can project some images and it is not a integrated device as described by the 915 patent.
Singh said it’s not that hard to change the look of an icon or many other things on a user interface: “There are a number of alternatives to the programming constructs. You can easily replace events and you can set a procedural program where you can replace objects.”
Attorneys asked Singh about the testimony of Mr. Gray in regard to Jeff Han’s prototype TED presentation, as it was used as prior art in this case. Singh said if you make a rigorous analysis of each of the gadgets and into the programming language, you will likely see the difference between them. Singh said the famous video by itself cannot tell you anything about event objects, much less about whether a technology like that was copied.
After Singh was excused, Ravin Balakrishnan was called as a witness but his time was extremely brief. In a quick five-minute session, he invalidated the use of the Tablet cloth program in the DiamondTouch item as a “prior art.”
After a brief break, the trial continued for another hour with shorter guest appearances from previous witnesses.
