Testimony from some of Samsung’s top executives revealed that the Korean giant believed its aggressive marketing, and not immitation of the iPhone’s design, is what propelled the Korean handset to the top of the global sales chart.

This position runs unsurprisingly counter to the message espoused by Apple’s lawyers, which holds that Samsung only became the world leader in mobile hardware by copying the features of its iPhone and iPad.

Todd Pendleton, the CMO for Samsung’s American division, gave the most compelling argument for the strength of marketing - noting that he was completely unaware that Samsung even made smartphones when he joined the company in 2011.

Pointing to this as a “branding problem”, Pendelton went on to say that, “there was no recognition for what our product was or what it stood for.”

‘relentless innovation’

After learning more about Samsung's mobile products, Pendleton became convinced his company had a superior device to Apple's iPhone and so he created a brand around Samsung’s “relentless innovation”.

But Apple’s lawyers were quick to point out that Samsung’s decisions during this time were not wholly ignorant of Cupertino’s developments.

Pointing to an internal memo from Dale Sohn, a former Samsung executive in charge of its iPhone business, Apple's lawyers found that Samsung believed, “Beating Apple is no longer merely an objective. It is our survival strategy”.

Additionally, as the world awaited the unveiling of the next iPhone in 2012, Sohn emailed Pendleton that “There will be a tsunami when [sic] iPhone 5 is coming” and stressed the need to counter it.

Whether memos and emails like this are enough to add to the argument that Samsung willfully and knowingly copied Apple’s designs remains to be seen - and will no doubt be answered when the jury reaches its decision on the latest patent trial between the two tech titans.

[source: New York Times]