Apple has released its apology to Samsung, as required by the High Court after the company lost its battle where it complained that the iPad design had been copied for the Galaxy Tablet.
In the apology, Apple focussed on the fact that the judge ruled the iPad was ‘a cool design’, while the Galaxy Tablet was ‘not as cool’.
Apple quoted the judge’s statement: "The extreme simplicity of the Apple design is striking. Overall it has undecorated flat surfaces with a plate of glass on the front all the way out to a very thin rim and a blank back. There is a crisp edge around the rim and a combination of curves, both at the corners and the sides. The design looks like an object the informed user would want to pick up and hold. It is an understated, smooth and simple product. It is a cool design.
"The informed user's overall impression of each of the Samsung Galaxy Tablets is the following. From the front they belong to the family which includes the Apple design; but the Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool."
According to the ruling, made in July, the apology will have to stay online for six months to ‘correct the damaging impression’ that Samsung copied the design of the iPad.
Apple does not seem willing to admit defeat on the subject, though, ending the ‘apology’: “However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple's design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple's far more popular iPad.”