Apple Inc. has sued Samsung Electronics Co., saying the South Korean company's Galaxy line of smartphones and tablet computers copy Apple's popular iPad and iPhone.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple alleges the product design, user interface and packaging of the Galaxy products "slavishly copy" Apple.
"When a Samsung Galaxy phone is used in public, there can be little doubt that it would be viewed as an Apple product based upon the design alone," Apple says in its lawsuit, which was filed Friday.
Cupertino-based Apple is seeking an order barring Samsung from infringing on a variety of its patents and trademarks, as well as unspecified damages.
A Samsung spokesman said the company's products are the result of its own research and development. He says Samsung plans to defend itself against Apple's lawsuit.
Apple first released the iPhone in 2007, and has since upgraded the device several times. The company unveiled the iPad last year, and began selling the iPad 2 in March. The company had sold over 108 million iPhones and 19 million iPads, as well as more than 60 million of the iPod Touch, which is a digital music player that looks similar to the iPhone but can only access the Internet over Wi-Fi and cannot make cel