Perhaps the two most striking aspects of the CAD mock-ups and one of the 3D models is that they look a lot more like the iPhone 4 than the original iPhone launched by Apple in 2007. The mock phone has a silver metal band running around the edge and a flat front and back.

The email was sent two weeks after Tony Fadell, then a senior executive in the iPod division, forwarded a BusinessWeek article to Apple's senior management, including Ive and Steve Jobs, in which the head of Sony's creative strategy unit was interviewed about the company's design. In the article, he also discussed the iPod's influence on Sony.

The case is 11-01846 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose.

The IDG News Service