When the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial resumes Aug. 10 in San Jose,
Calif., attention is expected to focus on a 132-page confidential Samsung report
showing point-by-point how Samsung’s design comes up short compared to the
iPhone.

The document, introduced into evidence by Apple during the trial in U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California, is meant to support Apple’s
contention that Samsung copied Apple’s design for its new smartphones and, in
doing so, violated Apple’s patents on the devices. Apple also accuses Samsung
of copying design features of Apple’s iPad tablet computer in its Galaxy Tab
line of tablets.

The report, labeled  “Highly Confidential- Attorneys’ Eyes Only,” compares
design features with both phones depicted in side-by-side images that display
the calendar and calculator functions, the Web browser, connectivity,
multimedia and other areas.

For instance, the report compares the calendar functions and notes that when an
iPhone user taps on a particular date, a window appears below with a summary of
their appointments that day. But on the Samsung model, the “legibility” of the
calendar items is poor because the window they appear in is too small. In
another example, the report is critical of the telephone keypad screen on the
Samsung for “poor utilization of space”  compared to the iPhone’s.

The analysis also praises the clean look of the iPhone home screen that is designed
to prevent application icons from being repeated on the home screen, while the
image of the Samsung home screen has three icons all indicating the Gmail
application. Samsung phones run Google’s Android mobile operating system. A graphic
designer called into court by Apple testified that she thinks Samsung copied the graphic design of Apple icons.

The report describes the iPhone user interface for connecting to a Wi-Fi network as
“intuitive,” while noting that a Samsung user has to go to two screens and take
additional steps to establish a connection.

Samsung executives, during their trial testimony, have not denied that they looked at
iPhones and other smartphone brands in designing Samsungs, but deny that they
actually copied design features of the iPhone.

Presented with an excerpt of the 2010 report by an Apple
attorney, Justin Denison, chief strategy officer for Samsung’s mobile business,
acknowledged in testimony Aug. 3 that
Samsung studied Apple products when developing its own competing models, but
denied that it went so far as to copy Apple’s design in its products.

In fact, Scott Forstall, the Apple senior vice president in
charge of the iOS software for iPhones and iPads, testified that Apple, too,
did "teardowns" of competitors’ products, including Samsung’s. However, he said
that was done to benchmark the designs of rivals, not to copy them. Apple
is seeking $2.5 billion dollars in damages from Samsung for patent
infringement.