Over 100 of the world’s leading designers have filed an amicus brief in support of Apple in their long-running patent legal battle against Samsung. Design pros signing their name to the brief include Norman Foster, Calvin Klein, Dieter Rams, and a number of others.
Apple was awarded nearly $1 billion in damages in 2012 after Samsung was found to have copied the “look and feel” of the iPhone, but a significant part of the decision was reversed in 2015, leaving Samsung owing $548 million. The patent lawsuit was initially filed in 2011 and has since made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Apple is fighting for it to stay.
The design professionals have worked for a number of companies, and cite the importance of industrial design when saying they believe Apple is entitled to the full amount of the damages.
… We have decades of experience providing product design services to leading U.S. and international corporations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities including Apple, Samsung, American Airlines, AT&T, Calvin Klein, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, The Harvard Endowment, Herman Miller, Hewlett Packard, Google, IBM, Knoll, Lenovo, LG, Louis Vuitton, Mobil Oil, Motorola, the New York Stock Exchange, NASA, Nike, Pfizer, Polaroid, Porsche, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Target, Whirlpool, and Xerox and many, many others.
Amici have served as President and Chairman of the Board of the Industrial Designers Society of America. We have lectured at leading graduate programs, including, Harvard, MIT Sloan School of Management, Stanford University, Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Innovation Design Lab of Samsung, Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania. Collectively, we have written and contributed to hundreds of leading business, academic and news publications, including Business Week, The New York Times, Innovations Magazine, Science and The Wall Street Journal.
We all share a strong professional interest in seeing that design patent law continues to protect investments in product design. Congress has provid-ed that “[w]hoever invents any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture may obtain a patent therefor.”
