Apple has suggested a novel way for rival phone and tablet manufacturer Samsung not to infringe on its patents: it should make ugly products.
Well, the Cupertino-based company doesn't quite put it in those terms... but it comes fairly close.
In a list of ways that Samsung could distinguish its products from Apple's iPad and iPhone, which was compiled as part of a legal battle over patents and examined by The Verge, the company suggests its Korean counterpart should try everything from creating products with "cluttered appearances" and designing thicker devices with "profiles that aren't thin".
Apple also suggests that Samsung might explore phones that aren't rectangular, or that don't have rounded corners.
It adds that Samsung's phones might try not having front bezels at all.
When it comes to phones, some of Apple's suggested design alternatives include:
- A front surface that is not black
- An overall shape that isn't rectangular
- No front bezel
- Screens that aren't centred on the front face
And when it comes to tablets, the suggestions include:
- Thick frames
- A 'not entirely flat' front surface
- Thick profiles
- Cluttered appearance
The two companies have been involved in a long-running and intensely aggressive series of disputes for more than a year.
Apple argues that Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone maker, has copied the designs of its most successful recent devices, the iPhone and the iPad.
They later sued Samsung via a California court. Samsung countered by bringing cases in Seoul, Tokyo and Germany, and many other countries.
For a while the battle seemed to be swinging Apple's way. It won an injunction against the sale of the disputed Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the EU (though the ban was later scaled back to just Germany) and also won an injunction in Australia in October.
More recently things tottered back in Samsung's direction, when an appeals judge ruled that it could sell its 10.1 inch tablet in Australia from 2 December.
But even as the lengthy and complex back and forth battle unfolds in the courts, tech sites have already suggested that Samsung might be making changes to some of its products in response to Apple's complaints.
But as is typical for patent disputes of this kind, whatever happens it is unlikely to be over quickly - or without a lot of lawyers receiving a lot of pay checks.