Apple and Samsung Deliver Closing Statements as Patent Trial Nears End

Samsung copied in three months what Apple had spent five years developing, and that is the undisputed truth according to Apple's lawyer, as the historic patent infringement trial reaches jury deliberation.

After seeing the two companies exchange blows in the courtroom for four weeks, it now falls to the jury to come up with a verdict, but that will be no easy task with 109 pages of instructions to read and a 20-page verdict form to fill out.

The South Korean company is accused by Apple of copying the design of its iPhone and iPad in 21 of its products, as well as infringing ten of Apple's patents held on the two ranges of touch screen devices.

Meanwhile, Samsung has countersued Apple, claiming the company has used its patents relating to wireless technology without paying a license for them. Samsung also claims Apple is trying to defend patents that it has no right to, concerning features that existed prior to Apple's use of them.

As each side delivered closing arguments on Tuesday, Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven told the jury that Apple thinks "it's entitled to having a monopoly on a rounded rectangle with a large screen. It's amazing really."

Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny closed his argument by saying Samsung had used a shortcut in designing its response to the original iPhone.

McElhinny told Judge Lucy Koh and the jury: "In those critical three months [after the iPhone was announced in January 2007], Samsung was able to copy and incorporate the result of Apple's five-year investment in hard work and ingenuity - without taking any of the risks."

The Apple lawyer reiterated later: "It took Apple five years to create this revolution, and Samsung took three months to copy it. That's truth, and that's simple, clear, and undisputed."

Apple previously suggested that Samsung's alleged copying of its products was so severe, customers would mistake one for the other, but Verhoeven said: "The fact is consumers make choices, not mistakes...there's no deception, there's no confusion, and Apple has no credible evidence of it.

"Just think about walking into a Best Buy store. You go into the TV section, all of the TVs look the same. They're all boxes. They're all flat screens. They're all minimalist designs."

Apple is claiming $2.5bn (£1.6bn) in damages from Samsung for copying its designs and the iPhone maker also wants a sales ban on all Samsung products found by the jury to have copied Apple.

Samsung claims this is not true, and alleges that Apple did not licence key wireless technology to which Samsung owns the patents; these technologies feature in the iPhone and 3G/4G versions of the iPad.

With deliberations starting today, it's now over to the nine jurors (seven men, two women) and their 20-page verdict forms to come up with a decision.