Apple VP Phil Schiller: Apple’s Brand Was Tarnished By Samsung

Last year, a jury found Samsung had infringed on Apple’s patents, awarding Apple about $1.05 billion. Lucy Koh, a U.S. District judge, said the jury made a mistake in calculating about $450 million of the damages and soon after ordered a retrial of the case.

The Wall Street Journal reports, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, Phil Schiller, took the stand on Friday in court for a second time this week. Apple’s lead attorney asked him what his reaction was when he first say the Samsung Galaxy S, Schiller said:

“I was quite shocked. They went and copied the iPhone.”

Schiller says that the presence of a device that looks similar to theirs “weakens the view that the world has for Apple.” This causes consumers to question Apple’s innovation and design skills, something Apple is not used to.

During the week, Phil Schiller was in court testifying in the retrial of the damages award in Apple’s patent-infringement case against Samsung. Friday was Schiller’s final testimony in court.

Apple has said it deserves at least $380 million of the damages. On the other hand, Samsung only things they should pay Apple $52 million.

“Apple doesn’t own a patent on a product being beautiful or sexy. Isn’t that correct?” asked Price. “Apple doesn’t own the right to preclude the design of this hardware,” said the lawyer, holding up a Samsung tablet.

“I don’t know which Samsung devices are allowed to copy our devices and which ones aren’t,” said Schiller. When asked if Samsung had the right to sell a 10-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab that Price was holding up, Schiller responded: “It looks like an iPad.”

Price also revealed an email between Apple executives urging the company to develop a smaller size iPad. Apple later developed what we now know as the iPad mini, releasing their second-generation with Retina display just a few days ago.

Schiller said that releasing the iPad mini had nothing to do with competitors making smaller tablets. It was meant as an experiment to see if they could keep the same aspects found in the original iPad.

On Thursday, Schiller took the stand to talk about the iPhone, you can read all about it here.