Even if Apple's industrial design is a revival and not original, by the timing it is clear that Samsung is copying Apple and not 2001. Whether this should matter legally is a matter of debate.
And here I thought the word "prior" was pretty unambiguous. Perhaps there's some legal definition that clarifies it as some point no more than 2-53 years in the past?
For regular patents you are correct about prior art. But for design patents it is different, a design patents is closer to a trademark, where what matter is how it is currently being used to identify a product not who first thought of the idea.
Part of the problem here is that the * appearance* of a tablet or smartphone has become a much bigger part of the product. 20 or even 10 years ago people didn't buy a computer based on how it looks, and all computers looked pretty different from one another. The way the bulged, how the vents were positioned, or the color, made it obvious who made the computer (or even which model). Dell is an excellent example of making a recognizable design despite that design being ugly and making the USB slots hard to reach.
Now because the look of a tablet or smart phone is so important, perhaps even subject to fads, it's more like clothing industry which has very little IP protection.
