They're just trying to show the design similarities. Aspect ratio was not altered.

No, it appears as if it was just altered in the ways that would help their case, in this instance. With the tablet filing, the aspect ratio appears to be altered - and perhaps not coincidentally, altering the aspect ratio in that filing was more beneficial.

The end result appears to be, in both the tablet and phone filings, that the alleged image manipulation produced something that appeared more similar to Apple's products. That the image manipulation is different (aspect ratio adjustment, vs resizing) seems to be more damning than if the same adjustment was made across the board (i.e. it looks less likely to be accidental).

If the designs are so similar - and I am one of the few who really thinks they are - then Apple would have no need to scale the Samsung device in order to highlight the similarities. There's no excusing this. Once was terrible, twice is just incomprehensible. Incredibly unprofessional no matter how this came to be.

The filing has lots of pictures and information, among them the dimensions of the different devices. There needs to be a graphic that illustrates that the proportions and relative button placement is copied; this is that graphic.

I believe even a commercial advertisement making this kind of comparison is required to have a disclaimer immediately above or below it describing any changes made to an image. I would imagine a legal document would have more stringent requirements.

You remember "not actual size", right?