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 ...

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 ...

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, like utility patents, are required to comply with a requirement that an applicant's design is non-obvious. 35 U.S.C. §§103, 171. But design patents protect the non-functional aspects ...

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 ...

The number of granted design patents has tripled over the past 10 years. To find out why — and how design patents are being used to secure value for innovative products — Bruce Berman interviews IP ...

“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 ...

June 1, 2022 - In our last article, we discussed the implications of NFTs and how intellectual property rights could be used to protect them. In this article, we will explore the availability and ...

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 ...