As a special treat for patent-savvy car drivers
and also as CLE for judges judging patent and design matters,
we have looked at old California speed limit signs in the same grand State that is now hosting the Apple and Samsung design infringement case
and have found that the iPad is a virtual rectangular design replica of the old California speed limit sign (also having rounded corners and a border), photographic examples of which we found at classicdriver.com (photo of speed limit sign by Bonhams) and at the AARoads Blog, which we used as the basis for our illustration below
(the outline of the "acclaimed" minimalist iPad "design" is at the left and the old California speed limit sign is at the right, by which we have changed the original sizes of the two but have retained the relative actual height and width dimensions of each)
We see then that the iPad rectangular design is a direct rip-off of the old California speed limit sign. A conscious or subconscious causal design influence is in fact not excludable.
The iPad is essentially a familiar old California speed limit sign as far as its design is concerned.
Again, as in our previous posting, the point here is that the design display to which Apple claims proprietary rights is not their invention or design whatsoever. A ubiquitous generic speed limit sign IN CALIFORNIA already used that very same design to display information long before the iPad, and that pad or tablet does nothing else than to use this same format to display its information digitally - that difference does not justify special IP rights.
There is NO INVENTIVE STEP and nothing unique has been created.
