Samsung’s argument against iPad design is a clip from a sci-fi movie

Maybe you have already encountered a term “prior art”. This term is used in patent law and means all information that was disclosed to the public about an invention before a date of filing application. So, if an invention has already been described in prior art, the patent will not be valid. Samsung decided to make use of this law and has put forward a sci-fi argument in its legal dispute with Apple. It has gone so far as to cite a movie ’2001: A Space Odyssey’ by Stanley Kubrick as prior art against iPad.

The finding stems from an exhibit that Samsung’s filed with the U.S. District Court. The document says:

“As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor”.

This desperate attempt to prove that patent for Apple’s tablet is invalid was possibly made by Samsung in order to defend itself against Apple’s petition for a preliminary injunction.