Dieter Rams, Paula Scher, Terence Conran and other leading design figures support Apple in case against Samsung

A document submitted to the US Supreme Court in the case of Samsung vs. Apple has been signed by 111 leading figures in the design industry. From Pentagram partner Paula Scher and industrial designer Dieter Rams, to Terence Conran, Calvin Klein, John Sorrell, Alexander Wang, Edward Barber, Jill Ayers, Clive Roux and Norman Foster, the list is a who’s who of the design industry, spanning product and graphic design, architecture and fashion.

The case will decide if Samsung should pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Apple for its alleged theft of iPhone design features. The 63-page document, which can be read in full here asks whether Samsung infringes a design patent that holds it liable to the extent of the total profit earned from copying the patent owner’s, ie. Apple’s, designs.

It’s called a Brief of Amici Curiae, and is used to present expertise on the subject from the 111 “distinguished industrial design professionals and educators”. It uses examples, such as the design of the Coca Cola bottle and General Motors’ first Chevrolet, to argue the huge importance of design aesthetics, or more specifically how “history shows that a product’s visual design drives sales and becomes the product itself in the minds of the consumers.”