With all the brouhaha today about Samsung using Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odessey as prior art against Apple’s design patent, a lot of people seem to have forgotten they’re multiple ways to build a tablet.  And if Samsung are saying that there’s only one obvious way to do it, why were all tablets before the iPad so different to what they are now?

Some examples:

http://sondreb.com/blog/post/showdown-of-slate-tablet-pcs.aspx

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/08/what-tablets-looked-like-before-the-ipad-and-what-they-look-like-now/