Stefan Mileschin

Apple is having considerable difficulty proving to civilised nations that it invented the rounded rectangle.

So far only a jury in the US has decided that the rounded rectangle, first seen in ancient mathematics, sprung fully formed from the mind of Steve Jobs in the 21st century. In the UK, Apple has been told not to be so stupid, now a Dutch court has told Apple the same thing.

According to Reuters, a Dutch court, citing previous decisions in British courts, has ruled that some Samsung Electronics Galaxy tablets do not infringe an Apple designs.

A district court in The Hague spent a long time looking at the rounded corners of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, and Galaxy Tab 7.7 and came to the conclusion that someone thought of that sort of thing a long time ago.

Samsung welcomed the decision, saying that it continued to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple's registered design features can be found in numerous examples.

The rounded rectangle argument is one of the more bizarre aspects of the patent war between the two companies. Oddly, it is the one that Apple has won the most money from.

In the US, a jury decided that Samsung stealing Apple's rounded rectangle was worth more than a billion dollars. That case is under appeal at the moment. It is believed that if Apple had claimed the invention of fire or the wheel it might have also got away with it.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/apple...nded-rectangle