The Apple vs. Samsung trial which has taken place in California over the past few weeks is finally coming to an end with both companies making their closing statements to jurors this afternoon. First up was Apple, who described Samsung’s alleged act of “slavishly copying” the iPhone when it was introduced in 2007 in order to do damage control. The Cupertino California company continued to say that Samsung’s efforts to copy even more products over the years became apparent.
Apple’s Harold McElhinny presented the company’s final arguments, saying that Samsung’s devices didn’t look similar to any of Apple’s until 2007 when the iPhone was launched. Once the iPhone had launched, the Apple lawyer said that the similarities between the released devices (not just the iPhone) were obvious, pointing out the Best Buy survey (amongst other evidence) where customers were unable to differentiate between the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. McElhinny closed the argument telling the jury to look at the evidence where Samsung executives compared iPhone devices to Samsung devices in terms of features and ease of use and to also think about Samsung’s meeting with Google where Samsung was warned that it was copying Apple.
The Apple lawyer ended up presenting four scenarios where Samsung could owe Apple for damages. The scenarios ranged from Samsung owing anywhere between $2.481 billion in damages to a smaller $519 million. The biggest quote takeaway from Apple’s closing statement was when McElhinny said “Samsung was the iPhone’s biggest fan.” After Apple’s closing statement, it was Samsung’s turn to share its closing arguments where the South Korean electronics giant not only defended itself from Apple’s copying accusations, but also made a case to say that Apple actually infringed upon Samsung patents. When it was Apple’s turn for a rebuttal, the Cupertino California company made some strong statements and held its ground claiming that Samsung stole their designs and “didn’t play by the rules.” Apple even went as far as saying that Samsung shouldn’t just be given a slap on the wrist as it won’t change their operations.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Source: AllThingsD
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