After a raucous three weeks, the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial is nearly over. Crack-smoking accusations aside, Apple has accused Samsung of ripping off the iPhone and iPad's physical designs and user interfaces, and Samsung fired back by showing its own and others' inventions that pre-dated the iPhone.

With Samsung having rested its case on Thursday, testimony is likely to finish up Friday, with the case being sent to the jury next week. Given that we're talking about smartphones and tablets, the trial in US District Court in San Jose has featured a lot of eye candy in the evidence. Apple went first as the plaintiff, and we put together a pictorial overview of its case. Now it's Samsung's turn to get the graphical treatment, using exhibits the company showed the jury and/or entered into the official record.

You say you invented the iPhone, Apple?

Apple claimed ownership over the "trade dress" that makes the iPhone and iPad unique: namely the physical design of the devices and the look of the user interface, particularly the style of application icons. Samsung set out to demonstrate that Apple shouldn't have ownership over these designs because of products that pre-dated iOS devices.

Testifying on Samsung's behalf was one of the people behind LaunchTile, a user interface for mobile touchscreen devices in the early 2000s such as the HP iPaq. Samsung presented an image of LaunchTile running on the iPaq to show that interfaces consisting of a grid of rectangular icons weren't unique to Apple:

Note that Apple doesn't claim ownership over all interfaces consisting of icons in a grid. Apple showed the jury examples of competitors' products that use icon grids in ways that don't infringe Apple's claimed trade dress. But certain attributes, like rounded rectangles and a mix of icon styles, push Samsung products over the fine line that makes them iDevice clones, Apple claims.

Continuing on the prior art defense, Samsung showed off the 10-year-old DiamondTouch table created by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. The table-sized multitouch computer is actually more reminiscent of Microsoft's old Surface tabletop computers, but Samsung believes the existence of the device acts as prior art that invalidates Apple's patents:

After finishing its third-party prior art argument, Samsung attempted to disprove Apple's point that Samsung products were dramatically altered to look just like the iPhone shortly after the iPhone's release. Whereas Apple cherry-picked pre- and post-iPhone devices to make Samsung look like a dirty thief, Samsung showed that it had iPhone-like designs even before the iPhone came out:

Samsung: Apple's the one that stole the iPhone

Samsung was not allowed to show certain evidence that Apple was inspired by Sony when building the iPhone, because the evidence was submitted too late in the legal process. But Samsung still had a bit to show the jury, including this 2006 e-mail from one Apple executive to another referencing "Sony-style" design:

In other words, If Apple is allowed to be inspired by Sony, why can't Samsung be inspired by Apple?

But even more striking was Samsung's counter-offensive, in which it argued that its own patents were violated by Apple. Samsung claims that Apple should pay $422 million for copying Samsung patented technology, while Apple is seeking $2.88 billion from Samsung.

Samsung claims Apple infringes upon patents including #7,577,460, filed for in July 2006, covering a "portable composite communication terminal for transmitting/receiving and images, and operation method and communication system thereof." There's also #7,456,893, filed for in June 2005, which covers a "Method of controlling digital image processing apparatus for efficient reproduction and digital image processing apparatus using the method," and #7,698,711, filed for in July 2007, covering a "Multi-tasking apparatus and method in portable terminal."

Samsung's infringement case didn't go on quite as long as Apple's, but the company did present this exhibit showing in more detail how Apple allegedly infringed one of the above patents. The following exhibit shows one of the US patents mentioned above while calling out a few features of the iPhone that allegedly infringe the patent:

As noted earlier, testimony is scheduled to end today. Jury instructions will be discussed Monday, closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday, and after that the jury will have a lot to mull over. Whichever side loses will probably appeal. You didn't think this was actually the end, did you?