So it looks like Samsung might not have tried to copy the iPhone

An original or a copy?

You remember the recent court case in which a vast amount of money was awarded to Apple?

Yes, the one in which Samsung was told to hand over $1.05 billion because quite a few of its products seemed to infringe on Apple's patents.

Well, those who like poring over these things have been spending long and, no doubt, sober nights examining the documents that were presented to the court -- documents that have now been unredacted.

What odd suggestions these documents make.

I am grateful to Groklaw for reading and reading and reading until its eyeballs were larger and more oblong than a Galaxy S3 screen.

Much of its reading seems to center on personal information about jury foreman Velvin Hogan and his bankruptcy issues.

However, the part that fascinated me concerned the allegations that Samsung might have told its designers to "make something like the iPhone."

Groklaw locates the fuller version of the Samsung internal documents in question and something peculiar appears. The senior executive at Samsung who presided over internal meetings actually is heard to say: "I hear things like this: Let's make something like the iPhone."

He goes on to lament: "When everybody (... [Read more]