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 ho

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.