It's the overall design aesthetic. It's not just one design feature that is being used from the iPad. The crunch pad had a 16x9 screen and was thicker than the iPad.
If you don't think Apple innovates on 'thin' designs, I don't know what to tell you. And if a tablet came out that looked like the iPad before the iPad, I don't think we would see the iPad as it is today, and everyone would be copying what ever design Apple did do.
They are welcome to get a regular patent covering their new approaches to implementing thin hardware (e.g. new battery technology or whatever).
Getting on a monopoly on (or due to) the design trait "thin", however, is not acceptable, even if it were the case that Apple came up with the idea of thin devices, which is obviously not so.
I already said it was the overall design aesthetic, not one simple element, but that it's obvious that Apple is a leading innovator in the space of thin industrial design. iPhone, iPod, iMac, the Air, are all some of the thinest in class. Plus you can see how even the CrunchPad/JooJoo changed it's design aesthetic to match that of the iPad after the iPad was publicly announced.
And where/when did monopoly come up in this conversation? To my knowledge patents do not enable a company to a monopoly.
Thin is not a patentable idea. If Apple's thinness innovations are truly patentable, then they should get a patent for the specific technologies they've invented and not a design patent for the idea of making something thin. People have wanted thinner computers forever.
Also, the article shows a tablet that came out before the iPad looking at lesst as much like the iPad as the Galaxy Tab.
And I don't think the Crunch Pad looks like the iPad. For the reasons stated above, and the rumors of the iPad began before the Crunch Pad was conceived.
Thanks, I know what a design patent is. (Not sure why you think patent discussion about icon design is relevant to thinness, though.) Thinness is not still not patentable. That's an integral element. Saying that "thin" is patentable is like saying "has a screen" is patentable. Apple's case hinges on the idea that they can own the very idea of a tablet that doesn't suck.
And seriously, this doesn't look like the iPad, at least to the same extent that the Galaxy Tab does? Come on.
