This is one of those things that I can't comprehend the need to explain. It is so obvious that I find it hard to believe anyone needs an explanation. They brought it into court as "prior art" to demonstrate that the idea was not dreamed up by Apple. Conceptually, and by that "look and feel" which you were discussing previously, there is little difference between what that movie produced, and what Apple subsequently produced.
I ask the same question of why do YOU bring it up if everyone knows it was not real, what purpose do you have in denigrating the company who actually made them work successfully?
What made them work successfully is the fact that the technology finally became available for people to build things such as this with it. The idea was older than the technology necessary to support it.
What new thing did Apple bring to the technology? What particular characteristic of their device is worthy of being patented? If it's the idea that "Look! A screen that you can carry around and use for data entry, etc!", then I would say Stanley Kubrick had that covered back in 1968.
Diogenes, an invention is seldom "dreamed up" in its entiretey by its inventor. That is what the general public and often juries have to be disabused from before an infringement case can move forward. The fact is that most inventions that are literally dreamed up by their inventors that were never, ever thought of before, but couldn't be done because the technology just did not exist, are so rare they can probably be counted on the fingers of our hands.
One, for example, is Edison's invention of the phonograph. The recording of sound was not something that anyone had really thought possible. But most everything else was something that others had thought about, wrote about, or discussed, or were even working on. . . but could not make work. Those other people making the attempts, writing about the possibilities, or discussing the invention, did not obviate the true creative genius of the person or people who actually finally did make it work, or prevent the inventor from patenting his invention.
You appear to be one of those who mistake such "prior art" as something real. . . it isn't. "Feel" those permanently installed "tablets" on the tables in 2001 could not be picked up, had no touch interface, and as such had no "feel" at all. They were an illusion.
What new thing did Apple bring to the technology? What particular characteristic of their device is worthy of being patented? If it's the idea that "Look! A screen that you can carry around and use for data entry, etc!", then I would say Stanley Kubrick had that covered back in 1968.
And that statement just proves my point: you do not understand at all what "prior art" means when it comes to patents, especially design patents.
Stanley Kubrick did not invent the computer tablet, because he did not produce a description of a potentially working tablet or even describe a working product, nor describe how it would work; he did not invent the look and feel worthy of a design patent because it could not meet even the basic criteria for such a patent. . . It is not a product. Under your theory of "prior art" on patents, Herbert George Wells invented the mechanism for traveling through time in 1895 when he wrote his book, "The Time Machine". BZZZT wrong on all counts.
You just demonstrated exactly why Samsung's attorneys brought this film clip into court and why the judge almost sanctioned them. Judge Koh should have sanctioned them. It was legally unethical, it's the equivalent of putting a known perjurer on the stand with the intent that he give perjured testimony, and definitely worthy of sanctions. Samsung's attorneys knew it was inadmissible, but showed it anyway as a ploy to prejudice the jury. Apple's attorneys immediately objected and the judge dismissed the jury while she admonished the Samsung attorneys. Some legal experts say she should have kept the jury present to underscore what she did when the jury was brought back into the courtroom. The judge instructed the jury they could not give Stanley Kubrick's fiction any weight at all. . . but the damage was already done. Some of the jurors even mentioned it after the trial as a reason for a lower judgement amount than they would have awarded had they not thought there was "prior art." i.e. The Samsung attorneys succeeded in unethically obfuscating the case in some jurors' minds by presenting it.