It has only been a mere week since Apple unveiled the iPad to the world. Now a chinese manufacturer called “Shenzhen Great Loong Brother Industrial” is claiming that its P88 tablet’s design was totally copied and cloned by Apple since the P88 has been on the market for about 6 months now. But if you ask me, it looks like P88 cloned the iPhone/iPod Touch design.

In a recent interview by Spanish Newspaper El Mundo, Xiaolong Wu CEO of the Chinese manufacturer was quoted saying, “We are considering legal action, but we cannot do much in the United States. But if Apple brings the iPad to China, we will be forced to denounce them, because it will certainly affect our sales,” That was a rough translation by Google Translate.

Wu says that the iPad and P88 are practically “completely identical” and that Apple copied their multitouch screen, the design of the housing and bezel of the P88.

Both tablets may look alike in some ways, however the internals are completely different. The P88 sports a 10.2? non-mutitouch screen, 250gig hard drive, a gig of RAM, etc.

iPadInsider actually posted about the P88 possibly being the first iPad clone back in November of 09. And at the time when we wrote the article, via Google Translate — we caught them describing the P88 as an “Imitation Apple handwritten notebook.” The same page now leads to nothing. The company was obviously stating that as a selling point for the device. So can they really sue Apple?

Note: The company went with a plastic looking bezel (Image above) for a short while before going back to a chrome bezel for the P88. Likely to differentiate itself from Apple’s iPhone.