Apple Lawyer Outs Internal Samsung Documents That Claim The iPhone Is “Easy To Copy”

Today the first shots were fired in the high-profile U.S. patent war between Apple and Samsung, beginning with Apple’s opening statements.

And no punch was pulled — Apple’s lawyer made a few hard-hitting claims in the courtroom, providing documents that show Samsung thought the iPhone was “easy to copy.” Harold McElhinny (Apple’s lawyer) also showed documents prepared by a Samsung executive that claim that the company was in a “crisis of design” because of the iPhone.

The presentation also included images of Samsung’s design evolution between pre-iPhone time and now.

But despite the evidence, McElhinny’s most crushing blow may have come in the form of a simple and well-known tech adage: “As we all know, it is easier to copy than to innovate. Apple had already taken the risks.”

However, just saying the hardware is easily copied isn’t proof of copying it, which is why McElhinny returned to evidence introduced in pre-trial, depicting Samsung’s phones before 2007 and their phones after the iPhone’s debut.

Take a look:

According to McElhinny’s argument in court (via Reuters), the main question the court would have to answer was how Samsung went from the phones on the left to the phones on the right.

Apple argues that 22.7 million devices sold by Samsung are in violation of patent infringement, and that the company is seeking up to $2.525 billion in damages. Samsung will follow up in its opening statement later this afternoon.