While Samsung may have slipped up during the first week of Apple v. Samsung with its contumacious attorney, the company jumped into the second week of the trial recharged and on the attack.
The day began with Justin Denison, Samsung’s strategy head, taking the stand to testify on a library of email exchanges that Apple alleges include planning by Samsung employees to copy the iPhone.
One of these emails originated from J.K Shin, Samsung’s head of mobile communications, to his designers outlining the importance of minimalism — a prominent iPhone design trait — in future Samsung designs.
The email exchange began in February of 2010, a month prior to the launch of the first Galaxy S.
“All this time we’ve been paying all our attention to Nokia, and concentrated our efforts on things like Folder, Bar, Slide,” Mr. Shin wrote. “Yet when our UX is compared to the unexpected competitor Apple’s iPhone, the difference is truly that of Heaven and Earth.”
“It’s a crisis of design,” Shin wrote.
Mr. Denison, for his part, claimed that this was the first time he had seen the emails and said he couldn’t speak directly on their content but attempted to downplay some of the language used in the emails.
“Samsung does an excellent job of remaining very humble, self critical and maintaining a sense of urgency within its own ranks to drive hard work and innovation,” Mr. Denison said. “We want to change so that it never rests on its laurels and becomes complacent. So you hear a lot of hyperbolic statements like ‘crisis of design’ and ‘heaven and earth.’”
He did, however, argue that Apple hasn’t always been the first to bring new technologies and trends to market, noting that Samsung was a pioneer with high-resolution smartphone screens as well as voice commands — something Samsung didn’t feel “[ripped] off” by.
Mr. Denison also argued on the stand that brand confusion, according to Samsung’s research, doesn’t exist because of the sheer amount of time consumers take to research a new smartphone purchase. Samsung’s research claims this number is around six weeks.
“Consumers do a considerable amount of study and take a considerable amount of time to make their phone choices,” he said.
Next on the stand was Apple’s ‘expert’ witness, Peter Bressler. Mr. Bressler had previously worked for Apple, and was paid $75,000 to be a consultant for the case.
Mr. Bessler argued that Samsung was infringing on Apple’s intellectual property and patents.
“It is my opinion there are a number of Samsung phones and two Samsung tablets that are substantially the same as the designs in (the iPhone and iPad) patents,” Mr. Bressler testified.
Samsung attorney Charles Verhoeven was quick to argue that Mr. Bressler was merely a hired ‘hired gun’, and was partisan to Apple because of his financial relationship with the company.
