According to Bloomberg, a witness testifying for Samsung, being sued by Apple over claims of stealing the design of the iPhone and iPad, said during the trial today that Apple was shown prototypes of tablet computers more than a decade before it released the iPad back in 2010.

Fidler said in a written declaration he started working on a tablet design in 1981 and that “Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes” during a period in the mid-1990s when the company collaborated with Knight-Ridder Inc.’s information design laboratory in Colorado.

“My feeling was that it should be something that’s lightweight, portable, with a flat screen that had an ability to use a touch screen,” Fidler testified, referring to the first mock-up of his tablet from the early 1980s.

Samsung is using Fidler as an attempt to prove to the court that Apple didn't design the iPad without outside influence.