Epic fail: Samsung’s own lawyers can’t tell a Galaxy Tab 10.1 from an iPad

October 14, 2011 By Jeffrey Van Camp

In a court hearing defending the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 against the iPad 2, Samsung lawyers were unable to pick out their own tablet from the competition.

Right or wrong, Apple is kicking Samsung’s butt about its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets. The product has been attacked all over the world and Apple has made significant gains in Australia, Europe, and now the United States as well. U.S. district judge Lucy Koh has ruled that Samsung’s tablets infringe on Apple patents. The product won’t be banned in the States, but it means more hassles for Samsung. Worse, the company’s lawyers made a huge blunder in court.

Reuters reports that at one point during the hearing, Koh held both an iPad and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 above her head and asked Samsung’s lawyers if they could tell which was which at a distance of only 10 feet.

“Not at this distance your honor,” said Kathleen Sullivan, a Samsung attorney that may need to get her eyes checked.

The judge asked the question again, this time of the entire Samsung legal team. “Can any of Samsung’s lawyers tell me which one is Samsung and which one is Apple?” she asked. After a moment or two, one of the team got the right answer.

“It took a long time to make that distinction,” Koh said.

I hate to say it, but there are enough distinguishing features between the iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to pick them apart at 10 feet, especially if you’re a Samsung lawyer, who should be intimately familiar with the two devices. We don’t know what angle they were held up at, but if the screens were visible, then the iPad Home button would be a giveaway, as would the Samsung logo on the Tab. In addition, the Galaxy Tab is thinner and longer because it has a widescreen while the iPad has a 4:3 screen. The back colors of the tablets are also different and the iPad has a tapered edge while the Galaxy Tab has a rounded edge. Then, of course, there’s the buttons. The power button and volume keys on the iPad 2 are dark in color, different in placement and color than the silver Galaxy Tab buttons. The rear camera is also in a different place completely–upper left when in vertical orientation on the iPad and top center landscape on the Galaxy Tab. From what I remember, the Galaxy Tab doesn’t even have a screen lock button, so that’s a giveaway right there, if it’s visible.

At this point, we wouldn’t be surprised if the judge was holding up a white iPad. How can Samsung’s lawyers have so much trouble picking out their own product at a negligible distance? Was the light blinding? Do they all suffer from intense near-sightedness? What’s the deal?

Showing 22 comments

zen at 7:32pm 14th October 2011 What Judge Koh must do before putting the ipad and Samsung Galaxy on her head and asking the lawyers to say which was which. she must first assume as a fact that both the products have now assumed "tablet" status, much like the the Dell, Asus, HP 'netbooks' are. No buyer would under the circumstances be able to say which is which if Judge Koh put two netbooks on her head and asks him the same question. The fact of the matter is that the touchscreen tablets are now accepted as a common and NOT a specialty product where intended buyers would only look to the brand and not the shape of the product.
1. honkj at 10:13pm 14th October 2011 "able to say which is which if Judge Koh put two netbooks on her head and asks him the same question. " yes a lot of the tablets are copying the iPad design now, where NONE DID before the iPad, are you trying to prove Apple's case or something? Apple sued samsung because it was slavishly the same... or they wouldn't have even bothered. do us all a favor and open a samsung box that it ships in, and then do the same with an iPad, and tell us all with a straight face that samsung didn't copy EVERYTHING about the iPad... down to the box it ships in.
  1. Deepak Menon at 12:12am 15th October 2011 *puts on straight face "samsung didn't copy EVERYTHING about the iPad... down to the box it ships in"...there, feel better now?
Scotty Quill at 10:07pm 14th October 2011 That sound about right, i bet their secretaries can!.... I'd suggest they can pick their mistresses boobs at a hunded paces....
Lucas Meyer at 9:48pm 14th October 2011 Simple apple don't like competition
Applet at 1:42pm 14th October 2011 If you have two devices that require very similar front faces for usage (ex. flat screen televisions) and you don't get to see the vastly different back sides (and only part that is reasonably able to have varied designs) then you'll probably have some difficulty seeing the relatively small distinguishing features on the front face. Take a look at the back of the device, the other 50% and you'll have absolutely no problem. Is Sony suing LG for have a similar flat screen television? Perhaps Samsung has bad lawyers but everyone else commenting here, especially the author and not limited to the Judge is just as bad as the lawyers. Specifically to the author I see you almost caught on about the limited nature of the case notes but you don't really know which model is being presented because the ones in the picture you provided are vastly different then the sales models you can see in online stores.
1. Ian Bell at 3:15pm 14th October 2011 Good point with the TVs. Thats true. If someone covered the logos on two similar TV's and asked me which brand was what, I would not be able to tell you. And at 15- 20 feet, even with the logos on there, I would have a tough time telling.
2. Chris Portle at 3:42pm 14th October 2011 I think part of the problem is that Apple created the way that these things look just a few years ago and, before that, the "required look" for touchpads was nothing like what Apple came up with.
  1. Applet at 4:04pm 14th October 2011 If you really want to go down that road the iPad borrowed the image from Axiotron who modded macbooks into tablets with a unique design, so Apple really didn't come up with all that much except deflating everything and improving the parts.
Gr8Music at 11:24am 14th October 2011 Poor Samsung...they copied to China standards!
iMan at 10:18am 14th October 2011 Now THAT is a epic fail! >_<
Darrell MacLennan at 4:58pm 14th October 2011 Hilarious, and if I was Samsung I'd sue the lawyers for stupidity. You don't have to be a nerd to know the differences in two products you're supposed to be familiar with. Anyway, how much more different can you make two rectangular objects that serve the same function and have the same size screens? Apple is just being pathetic.
Ian Bell at 9:47am 14th October 2011 The home button on the iPad should have been a dead giveaway at 10 feet.
Josh Smith at 4:33pm 14th October 2011 What do you expect from people who aren't nerds!!!
Damon Schmitt at 4:14pm 14th October 2011 1. Hire million dollar legal team for patent dispute 2. Realize none of them sat down and physically examined the product 3. ???
Andrew Couts at 9:03am 14th October 2011 That is incredible. And by "incredible" I mean completely idiotic.
Aiman Zahry at 3:54pm 14th October 2011 4 letter words...!!!
Robert Heptinstall at 3:29pm 14th October 2011 ahaha
Atley Joseph at 3:27pm 14th October 2011 LMFAO!!!
L Joshua Eikov at 3:26pm 14th October 2011 What an epic fail- too bad too- the GTab is an awesome device.
Mike Dunn at 8:04am 14th October 2011 I'm hoping that knew the difference but didn't want to risk being wrong. They should be the experts on all the possible visual differences between the two products. If they don't know how are they supposed to convince others that they look different? I sort of want to attempt to recreate this and see how tricky it would actually be to tell when put on the spot.
1. honkj at 10:09pm 14th October 2011 well really it is Samsung that is terrible at design... they simply copied the iPad down to the BOX IT SHIPS IN.... including the plastics that hold the iPad at right at the rim of the box.... is anyone surprised that Samsung is losing this? seriously? i mean come on...