14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung has reportedly filed its opposition brief to Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction in the United States which attempts to ban sales of the former’s tablet computers and smartphones.
According to Foss Patents, a resource of patent issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices, the main part of Samsung's opposition brief has not yet entered the public record.
The reason? The Korean electronics company and maker of the A5 chip in Apple’s iPad 2 filed it under seal, according to Florian Muller, the author of the legal-centric blog.
Muller outlines that Samsung has also filed extensive declarations with numerous exhibits.
According to the intellectual property activist, those documents are very transparent, allowing those who view them to immediately make an idea of what Samsung's defense strategy is against Apple's motion.
However, there is one interesting claim in Samsung’s opposition brief. The Korean company’s lawyers are trying to convince the Court that some futuristic devices shown in sci-fi movies are featuring prior art for the general design of the iPad.
According to Muller’s post, Samsung's lawyers made the following claim in their defense against Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction:
Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. The clip can be downloaded online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ8pQVDyaLo. 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.
The video uploader himself describes the footage saying “Apple iPad used by crew of Discovery in the 1969 film by Kubrik: 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY.”
Of course, those are not Apple iPads.