Samsung’s Icons Are “Substantially Similar” To Apple’s, Says Designer

While Apple continues to pile up evidence in the court-case against Samsung, a former Apple graphic designer, Susan Kare, has mistaken a Samsung phone for an iPhone. Kare, who designed icons for the original Mac, was brought to the stand to tell her story.

She testified on Tuesday, describing all eleven of Samsung’s smartphones icons “substantially similar” to that of Apple’s D’305 patent. Here’s her actual words in the courtroom describing how she had mistaken a Samsung phone for an iPhone: (via AllThingsD)

“There was a big conference table with a bunch of smartphones on it,” Kare said. “A number of them were on; I could see their screens. I went to pick up an iPhone to make a point about onscreen graphics, and found I was holding a Samsung. I think of myself as someone who’s pretty granular about looking at graphics, and I mistook one for the other. So I personally have had the experience of being confused.”

When she was later asked how she could have possibly tangled up the iPhone and Droid Charge, she failed to respond, sticking with her initial plead regarding the similarities between the icons.

Kare said, “The similarities I saw were the regular grid, the rows of four icons, and the colorful mix of icons that are square with rounded corners,” which all happened to be far to coincidental. Even the photo icon on both devices include a sunflower design.

“It seemed likely to me that Samsung used iPhone screen graphics as a guide,” said Kare.

I will admit, the bottom dock and a few of the icons look similar, but that’s all. Do you think the similarities are huge?