Benchmark: (n) “A standard or point of reference…”

After the massive document detailing how to make the Samsung Galaxy more like the iPhone was admitted into court evidence on Tuesday, Samsung released the following statement:

“Samsung benchmarks many peer companies,” she said. “In fact, these are typical competitive analyses routinely undertaken by many companies in many industries – including Apple. Samsung stands by its culture of continuous improvement and innovation. We are very proud of the product innovations driven by our more than 50,000 designers and engineers around the world who have made Samsung’s products the products of choice.” (emphasis mine)

From Wikipedia:

Benchmark: (v) “Benchmarking is the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other industries.”

From Dictionary.com:

Benchmark: (n) “A standard of excellence, achievement, etc., against which similar things must be measured or judged.”

From Merriam-Webster:

Benchmark: (n) “Something that serves as a standard by which others may be measured or judged.”

Now let’s look at another word.

From Google:

Copy: (v) “A thing made to be similar or identical to another.”

From Merriam-Webster:

Copy: (v) “to model oneself on”

From Wikipedia:

Copy / Replica: (n) “A copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance.”

While the Samsung document itself - showing side-by-side comparisons of the Galaxy S and the iPhone - may loosely fit the definitions of “benchmark”, the end result of what Samsung did with it fits much better with all the definitions of “copy”.

——-

Follow me on Twitter: @myz06vette.