Summer Associate Michael Nathanson also contributed to this article. Since the inception of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) in 2012, design patents obtained a higher rate of favorable ...

July 31, 2023 - Design patents and utility patents have co-existed in harmony — each staying in its own lane, covering its own subject matter — for over 180 years. The U.S. Patent Act was enacted in ...

Design patents and utility patents are two different things. Design patents protect ornamental designs, such as the shape of a perfume bottle or the design on flatware. Utility patents protect four ...

Demand for design patent protections has been increasing in the last decade, and there is no indication that this trend will slow down. James Rieke, partner at Merchant & Gould, spoke to Minnesota ...

The future is only redesigned every so often, so it is worth asking, what will this new technology look like, and how can pioneers protect their user-facing innovations that will define this emerging ...

Contributed by Jason Shull and Chris Galfano Innovation is the engine of the commercial drone industry. Advances in autonomy, ...

“Design patents have a unique value within online markets where pictures of products—i.e., ornamental appearances—are ubiquitous and many different groups may be engaged in infringing activities in ...

One of the earliest innovations in personal computing was the application of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) as an intermediary between users and computer programs. This innovation made computers ...

“The tension between patents and trade dress protection is most evident when the alleged trade dress (or aspects thereof) has been disclosed in a utility patent.” Patents and trademarks protect ...

Firms will steer clients towards other ways of getting quicker examinations, but fear the ramifications of the USPTO’s decision Frustrations are boiling over after the USPTO ended a programme that had ...

Lawyers wish the latest manual had more details on Federal Circuit cases and that training materials for design patent examiners were online Some design patent lawyers are disappointed that the ...