Denial: iPhone design has not been stolen from Sony

Apple's lawyers in the protracted patent dispute were forced to demonstrate another iPhone prototype, named Purple. The counter argument from Cupertino is intended to refute Samsung’s accusation of copying Sony design.

Apple's official statement says that during the development of the iPhone, Apple giant engineers and designers created many concepts, including a rectangular phone created in August 2005 with rounded corners, a screen centered on the front surface, a Home button located in the center below the screen, and a speaker hole above the display. This design, dubbed Purple, was developed much earlier than appeared in the 2006 discussion by email to Tony Fadell. The existence of Purple refutes the Samsung argument that Apple copied the design of the iPhone from the Sony prototype .
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The Nisibori prototype with a large speaker, asymmetrical “Soniv” buttons, the Home button positioning on the side and other design details characteristic of Sony, appeared only in 2006. However, from this game in the idea of ​​what could have come from Sony, nothing later was used.

Apple wants a copy of the Sony design to be excluded from the accusations against them, and state that Samsung is engaged in juggling, shifting attention to the rival’s charges of borrowing. Thus, lawyers want to clarify that the style of the phone with rounded corners, over which all disputes go, was already a product of the work of Apple designers, and not a copy of the Sony design: the symmetrical arrangement of the controls was already characteristic of earlier prototypes

Nisibori’s statements should be excluded from the case, since he testified at the trial that he did not know about the future status of his work. According to the documents, the Sina prototype was not the main project at all, but merely an attempt to present what the Sony smartphone would look like based on the design developed by Apple. Judging by his profile on LinkedIn , he has been working for Apple since July 2002 and has never worked for Sony.