Samsung Documents Support Apple’s Copycat Claims

Apple scored big on Tuesday when Judge Lucy Koh agreed to allow a 132 page document into evidence that supports its claims that Samsung is blatantly copying the look and feel of the iPhone with its own Android-based smartphones. The two companies are currently fighting in court over patent infringement and design copying claims.

Apple gets documents showing Samsung as copycat entered as evidenceApple gets documents showing Samsung as copycat entered as evidence

The document is a 2010 internal report from Samsung detailing a feature comparison between the iPhone and the Galaxy S smartphones. It also details what Samsung could do to make its smartphone more like Apple’s iPhone, according to AllThingsD, and that’s a bit of information that can’t help Samsung’s argument that it never copied any of Apple’s design elements.

Samsung’s conclusion in the report was that would be better received if it more closely matched the iPhone’s features and interface.

Apple and Samsung have been fighting in courtrooms around the world over patent infringement complaints for over a year. Both companies claim the other is using mobile device patents without proper licensing, and Apple has also accused Samsung of blatantly copying the iPad’s look and feel.

Samsung documents detail iPhone, Galaxy feature comparisonsSamsung documents detail iPhone, Galaxy feature comparisons

Apple is claiming Samsung owes US$2.5 billion for patent infringement, and Samsung claims Apple owes 2.4 percent of all iPhone sales for using its patents without proper licensing.

Samsung has been insisting that the similarities in its post-iPhone smartphone designs are merely coincidence and that it was independently working on streamlined touch-based smartphone prototypes before Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007. With this new document as evidence in the trial, however, that argument may be a little more difficult to defend.