Is the Apple iPad2 nothing more in its basic design than a modern copy of the flat rectangular version of the StarTrek PADD?

Although LawPundit has already commented in depth on this topic in prior postings, there is a wonderful article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at ZDNet.com titled: Apple gets Samsung Galaxy Tab banned in E.U. with moronic ruling.

Particularly of interest is the link there to the registered EU Community Design 000181607-0001 upon which the preliminary injunction is based. Take a look and don’t laugh, or cry. As Vaughan-Nichols writes:

“I’ll tell you what I see, it’s a freaking tablet. Yes, it looks like an iPad. But, it looks just as much like every tablet that’s ever existed or ever will exist. It’s a tablet.”

Read the rest of the article, especially for some links to earlier prior art in tablets, also in Star Trek, where they were called PADDs (Personal Access Data Display). This Star Trek PADD looks as if the iPad were copied right from it:

Indeed, already on July 13, 2011, prior to the injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, gadgethelpline.com wrote in Star Trek PADD app for iPad sees sci-fi tech come full circle:

“The fantasy technology of Star Trek has always been ahead of its time and has very much inspired future generations. You can see the influence of Gene Roddenberry’s universe in many of the gadgets we use today particularly in the developments of early mobile phones (remember the flip front communicators of the 1960s original?) and later in what we now know as tablet computers.

As tech in the 24th century (and the late 1980s) moved on we saw the USS Enterprise get a gadget overhaul and in Star Trek: The Next Generation we were introduced to PADD (Personal Access Display Device). This gadget allowed the crew to bring up vital information at a touch. Generally as a large screen it was also seen as a handheld unit which, to bring it up to date, bears uncanny resemblance to an iPad. [emphasis added by LawPundit]“