In what might be called the, “Sure, maybe we stole it from Apple, but they stole it first!” defense, in their courtroom battle with Apple, Samsung is arguing that Apple’s pinch-to-zoom patent was stolen from Mitsubishi’s “Diamond Touch”. They made a similar argument regarding Apple’s iPad design.
BGR:
Samsung on Tuesday presented the jury with videotaped testimony from Roger Fidler, head of the digital publishing program at the University of Missouri. In his testimony, Fidler stated that he began work on a tablet design in 1981, Bloomberg reported. “Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes,” he testified, adding that Apple staff saw his designs in the mid-1990s.
“My original assumptions were that it would be a touchscreen without a stylus,” Fidler testified.
He said his tablet design, which would be used to build a working model in 1994, featured rounded corners and a flat touchscreen.
Samsung claims that Apple employees were exposed to Fidler’s tablet over a decade before the company launched the iPad in 2010. Samsung is trying to show that Apple’s protected designs, which Samsung is accused of copying in devices such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1, are actually invaild, because Apple stole them first!
Samsung is also targeting Apple’s pinch-to-zoom patent, which the folks from Cupertino claim is being infringed by various Samsung devices. One of Samsung’s first key pieces of evidence: A giant table.
Samsung’s legal team presented a massive touchscreen table, built by Mitsubishi and dubbed “Diamond Touch,” in an effort to show that Apple’s patent for pinch-to-zoom shouldn’t be valid, because it existed years before the first iPhone ever launched. Samsung also suggested that Apple stole the technology after its witness, Mitsubishi engineer Adam Bogue, testified that he showed the Diamond Touch to Apple engineers back in 2003.
So far Samsung’s defense is the old reliable, “you can’t steal something that’s already been stolen,” defense. (So, if this works for Samsung, wouldn’t they have to pay Mitsubishi for the use of the technology? And really from what I observed in the above video, it looks more like Mitsubishi had “pinch-to-resize-a-window” technology, not “pinch-to-zoom.”)
No one other than the members of the jury can tell how persuasive each side’s arguments will prove to be, only their verdict will tell which side was most effective.
