Apparently, that is what Samsung’s lawyers are hoping. According to Consumerist, they’ve responded to Apple’s recent intellectual property lawsuit with a short clip from Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1968 film, claiming that it could just as easily have inspired the design of the company’s Galaxy Tab as the iPad — in other words, the general idea has been circulating visually, if not technically, for decades.
From the filing: “In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.” Click through to see the video “evidence” and let us know in the comments: Do you think that 2001 — which obviously predates Apple — should invalidate its design claims on the iPad?