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If this is all irrelevant then why are you the one who posted the irrelevant picture showing cell phones before the iPhone (minus those that which were rectangular with rounded corners) and cell phones after the iPhone (minus flip phones, blackberries, and other designs still being made that were not rectangular with rounded corners)? The original iPhone... like just about everything else that Apple has come out before and since is almost always an evolution of designs and functions that other developers came up with previously.

Show me all the phones before the iPhone that were monolithic phones with a large screen, no keyboards, and almost all controls on the screen operated by a finger. Go ahead. . . find them. The point is that there was a sea change in phone design that happened BECAUSE of the iPhone. . . not any other phone made that kind of change. All the phones before the iPhone did not make that kind of impact on design of phones.

You can dance all you like about this feature and that feature, but it is the totality of the design you keep ignoring that brought that sea change about. . . the design that WORKED so differently from all previous cellular phones, smart and not-so-smart.

So go ahead, find all those slab phones that were so similar to the iPhone you claim pre-dated the iPhone . . . show me. You've pointed to one. a resistance screen phone that required a stylus. . . and would not work without said stylus. . . and had EIGHT buttons to maneuver around the phone, on the face. NOT anything like the iPhone at all, or the vast majority of phones post iPhone. Where are the single screen minimal button phones pre-iPhone. PLEASE.

You and I both know that Apple did not come up with multi-touch capacitive screens. . . To claim that Apple was the first to think of such a thing is outrageous.

You keep claiming this, but it is NOT true. Apple does indeed hold the patents on the multi-touch capacitance screens that WORK. You can claim that they do not, but making them actually work is what Apple accomplished. I posted the patents not too long ago. . . and the challenges that were denied and the proofs of why the challenges were denied. I am getting TIRED of arguing this falsehood.

Others were working on it, but they could NOT make their solutions work reliably to use on any devices except for HUGE X.Y choice screens. . . and then not for multi-touch. They randomized too easily. Apple then worked years on devising ways to determine how to decipher what was a scrolling motion and what was a mere accidental movement of a finger to allow the system to be stable. They also had to work to determine the CENTER of the touch of a broad touch of a finger to localize it. IT was not trivial or obvious as you seem to think. THAT was why Apple and it's engineers got the patent.

LG KE-850 Prada

In fact, the only capacitance touch phone that made it to market before the iPhone, was a SINGLE TOUCH phone, the LG-KE850 made for Prada, announced officially in February 2007, one month after Apple announced and demonstrated the multi-touch Apple iPhone, which Apple had been working on for four years. . . and had filed preliminary patents on in 2004. LG sold the Prada in Europe in May of 2007, one month before the iPhone went on sale in June of 2007. . . but it was only a feature phone, not a smartphone, but it does hold the honor of being the first capacitance touch phone. It was just not a multi-touch screen. It had no scrolling, and merely had a simple X,Y grid touch system.

To try and claim that a Samsung S3 could be mistaken for an iPhone is ridiculous and I am happy that on appeal this has been thrown out.

It is not ridiculous. . . in fact this image shows it is very difficult to tell them apart:

Remember, that under Design patents, extra buttons or names do not make a difference. Interestingly, had this case been heard in any other appellate district than the Ninth Circus Court of Schlemiels, it could not have been reversed. Only in the Ninth, which is the case law the US District Court in Washington DC used, do they hold such a strict rule that Design patents have to have no discernible utility functions at all to be protectable under a Design Patent. As there was case law in the Ninth Circus to that extent, the DC appellate court reversed, because Samsung claimed the shape of the corners facilitated slipping the phone into pockets which a sharp corner would not. . . and the inset bezel prevented the glass from striking the ground first and shattering. This made them not merely ornamental, but functional and ergo, not protectable by a Design patent. However, the overall utility patent of the iPhone ALSO includes those features, and may be extended to cover in a revisit of the trial.

You've pointed to one. a resistance screen phone that required a stylus. . . and would not work without said stylus. .

I still have my PPC-6700 unlike most original iPhones it still works. I occasionally still use it on Ting. It has a stylus, but it is not “required”. It works fine without the stylus. Despite coming out in 2005... years before the iPhone it still outperformed the original iPhone in many ways, especially when it came to Internet performance. Other than having a multi-touch screen... I would still like a list of what you think that the original iPhone did that the PPC-6700 would not.

Obviously any device that managed to sell over 6,000,000 units was well designed and well marketed and was a great success. I truly do not completely understand how Apple does it, but they obviously are trend setters. So no matter how this argument ends, Apple still gets the last laugh because they are the ones who have made literally billions of dollars and became the largest company in the world producing these types of devices. But, is it wrong to give a little credit where credit is due even if the foundation of much of this success came from innovators outside of Apple?

Apple was not the company who first came up with phones that were rectangular with rounded corners. Apple was not the first to come up with rectangular touch screens for phones. If you have a case with a rectangular shape with rounded corners and a rectangular screen and you throw in a button or two... it really doesn't matter what you do the devices are going to look similar. How you can argue this proves anything sounds silly and is beyond me.

Apple was not the first to produce devices using multi-touch capacitance screens that “worked” that could zoom in and out and go up and down using fingers. That is why most of Apple's “patents” on “gestures” have been determined to be invalid or highly questionable. Of course resistive screens are also capable of zooming in and out and moving from side to side using “just fingers”. If you had more experience using non-Apple products you might realize just how ridiculous some of your claims sound.

When it comes to Apple products you are the most knowledgeable person that I know. When it comes to non-Apple products you often just do not have a clue what you are talking about. I can only assume that your knowledge of non-Apple products comes from reading about them from comments on Apple product forums.

Your efforts as an apologist for the hired goons in the Apple legal department are admirable, but nothing can change the fact that they are a bunch of bullies whose efforts stifle innovation. To me it seems extremely distasteful that the largest company in the world goes to so much effort to hobble their competition. I doubt whether any other company has been as successful at manipulating our patent system.