GOOGLE: We Didn't Know You Could Patent Round Corners
Google appears to have been blindsided by the fact that Apple won its lawsuit against Samsung. — In an interview with Bloomberg TV, David Lawee, VP of corporate development, says, “We didn't believe rounded corners were patentable.”
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands two weeks after Google's first public response to the Apple v. Samsung verdict, when the company argued most claims 'don't relate' to stock Android (its August 27 statement). Now corporate development VP David Lawee tells Bloomberg TV the company 'didn't believe rounded corners were patentable' — a framing our records flag as disputed rather than settled, so treat it as Google's positioning, not established fact.
The remark fits a longer arc: Apple alleged in July that Google warned Samsung against copying its designs, while Google has spent years arguing the system itself is at fault — its own lawyer made the case that the patent system is broken in late 2011, and reporting through 2011 documented Google's struggle to assemble a valuable patent portfolio. The syndication breadth here — AllThingsD, BGR, Ars Technica and others picking up the same Bloomberg interview within a day — shows how much attention any Google comment on the verdict drew.
First-order effects
- Samsung bears the immediate cost: the verdict puts its flagship devices' design elements under injunction threat, forcing redesigns or licensing payments to Apple.
- Google is pulled into defending a platform it claims the lawsuit doesn't touch — every public statement like Lawee's commits it more visibly to Samsung's side of the dispute.
Second-order effects
- Apple is pressing its advantage past Samsung, with reports confirming it has turned its legal attention to Polish online grocery site A.pl following the win — signaling the verdict is a template, not an endpoint.
- Android hardware partners now price design-patent risk into product planning, since the verdict shows trade-dress claims can reach devices even when Google insists core Android is unaffected.
Third-order effects
- If design patents keep functioning as competitive weapons, smartphone differentiation shifts from feature roadmaps to legal exposure, and platform owners like Google need defensive patent depth they have publicly admitted lacking.
- The pattern points toward litigation becoming a standing cost line for every major mobile OEM, strengthening whoever holds the broadest design and utility portfolios — currently Apple.
The trend: Mobile competition is migrating from the product roadmap to the courtroom, with design patents emerging as the lever that lets Apple tax rivals' hardware regardless of what software they ship.