According to the Thomas S. Ross, the tech giant Apple stole and using his own hand-drawn designs for an ‘Electronic Reading Device’ (ERD) that he invented in 1992, and now Apple using it as the design of its iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Thomas S. Ross claims that “He is the first to file a device so designed and aggregated as to have created a novel combination of media and communication tools… whose identity was, since then, hijacked and exploited by Apple’s iPhones, iPods, iPads and others”. Thomas S. Ross, an American from Florida also claims that the tech giant Apple’s own reproductions are “substantially the same as his technical drawings of the ERD and that Apple’s three-dimensional derivative devices (iPhone, iPod, iPad), embody the non-functional aesthetic look and feel”. Among his submissions are a design for a moreover device or likely a mixture of two devices, which is known as the ‘Cypher-Text’, a ‘reading device’, and the ‘Cypher-Note’, a ‘writing device’ as you can see in the image. The problem is these patents were never approved just because it failed to pay the required fees and the process was reported abandoned in 1995. However, Thomas S. Ross claims that the tech giant Apple resorted to “dumpster diving” when designing the iPhone and subsequent devices. Hence, Thomas S. Ross lawsuit stated that “Instead of creating its own ideas, Apple choose to adopt a culture of dumpster diving as an R&D strategy” and Thomas S. Ross even remembers that the Steve Jobs once said that they were not ashamed of stealing any great ideas while designing the iPhone and subsequent devices.
