According to Apple Senior Vice President Scott Forstall, the company explicitly requested that Samsung not copy its rubber banding patent. Yet, following the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, that’s exactly what followed.

During Forstall’s deposition on Tuesday, the Apple SVP told a jury that Steve Jobs expressly and unambiguously stated, “Here’s something we invented. Don’t — don’t copy it. Don’t steal it.”

Forstall explained that the rubber banding effect (381′ patent) was something Jobs cared deeply about. The rubber banding effect, otherwise referred to as inertial scrolling, occurs when a user scrolls “past” the end of a document or Web page.

“I actually think that Android had not done rubber banding at some point and it was actually added later,” Forstall said. “So [Android] actually went from sort of, you know, not yet copying and infringing to — to choosing to copy, which is sad and distasteful…”

When asked whether the feature was a topic of discussion in other meetings with Samsung, Forstall couldn’t give a definitive account, only to say that he expects the topic came up.

Forstall did, however, reveal that Apple offered to license the rubber banding patent in 2010, with a goal to settle the issue out of court, but it sounds like Samsung was unwilling to play ball.

Apple clearly feels that, in addition to its icon and hardware design, inertia scrolling made the company’s products wholly unique. Thus, we have the ongoing patent dispute which, among a bevy of past iPhone and iPad designs, revealed that Samsung plainly said, “Let’s make something like the iPhone.”