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In his testimony before a jury in a federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif., Christopher Stringer, a longtime Apple industrial designer, provided a colorful account of the secretive methods by which Apple conjures up products like the iPhone and iPad. His testimony is part of an effort by Apple to show that Samsung swiped Apple’s patented inventions for use in its own electronics devices.
Wearing an all-white suit, Mr. Stringer, who was instrumental in crafting the first iPhone and iPad, described his job in poetic terms. “My job is to imagine objects that don’t exist and guide the process that brings them to life,” he said in a British accent.
The day concluded, though, with expressions of frustration by an Apple lawyer, Harold McElhinny, and the judge in the case, Lucy H. Koh, over the public release by Samsung of evidence that Judge Koh had ordered excluded from the case. Samsung’s lawyer, John Quinn, had argued that the evidence would help it show that the iPhone was inspired by Sony product designs.
Mr. McElhinny called the release an “intentional attempt to pollute the jury.”
Judge Koh demanded to know who on Samsung’s legal team had authorized and drafted the press release and asked to speak with Mr. Quinn, who was nowhere to be found. Samsung’s legal team said he was headed to a dinner in Los Angeles.
In his testimony earlier, Mr. Stringer said that Apple’s design team consists of 15 or 16 designers who work around a small kitchen table, a sharp contrast to Samsung’s 1,000 designers.
Asked whether Apple had factored manufacturing costs or component requirements into the design of the iPhone and iPad, Mr. Stringer came across as indignant. He testified that Apple’s designers were in full control of the design process and made all decisions based purely on design.
“The world had never seen anything like this — there were legions of phones available — but none satisfying. This broke new ground. It was more than a phone,” Mr. Stringer testified.
He called the iPhone a “cultural icon.” The iPad, he said, was a “breathtakingly simple device.”
Mr. Stringer was particularly blunt about Samsung. “We’ve been ripped off by everyone, Samsung in particular,” said Mr. Stringer. “We’re offended.”
When asked whether he paid attention to what competitors were doing, he said “on occasion” and “very rarely.”
Later, a lawyer for Samsung showed an e-mail dated Jan. 19, 2011, from Mr. Stringer to another Apple employee that seemed to undercut his earlier comment about watching rivals: “Paul, I need your latest summary of our enemies for an ID brainstorm on Friday,” the e-mail read. “If you have any more data beyond this please could you update the chart? I wonder if there’s anything worth noting about the HP/Palm leak.”
The e-mail contained a spreadsheet listing the core features and dimensions of iPhone competitors.
Asked again whether he paid attention to Apple’s competitors, Mr. Stringer said: “We were interested in understanding the feature sets of our competitors.”
Apple’s lawyer had one follow-up question: “Was that used to design some new Apple product?” Mr. Stringer responded: “Absolutely not.”
One other witness from Apple, Philip Schiller, the company’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, briefly took the stand before the court adjourned for the day. He was asked about influences on the company’s products.
“We don’t use any customer input in the new product process,” Mr. Schiller said. “We never go and ask the customer, ‘What feature do you want in the next product?’ It’s not the customer’s job to know. We accumulate that information ourselves.”
Mr. Schiller is expected to testify again on Friday.