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James Aquilina

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James has extensive practice experience in all aspects of U.S. intellectual property law and regularly counsels clients in the areas of utility and design patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law, with emphases on rights procurement, portfolio development and management, rights enforcement, and licensing.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has announced the rollout of DesignVision, an advanced AI‑powered image search tool now integrated into the examination system for U.S. design patent applications. According to the Official Gazette notice published July 16, 2025, DesignVision enables examiners to perform federated searches of U.S. and foreign industrial design and trademark databases—spanning over 80 registers—using only image inputs. Results are ranked by visual similarity, allowing faster and more precise prior art discovery. The notice clarifies that this tool is intended to augment existing textual search methods, not replace them.Continue Reading AI Search Tool Coming to Design Patent Examination

The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) is the examination manual used internally at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) to guide examiners in the process of examining patent applications. In practice, patent applicants frequently rely on the contents of the MPEP during patent prosecution to guide their arguments and hold examiners accountable to their legal obligations during patent examination.Continue Reading Recent Examination Manual Update Includes Guidance on Protection of Computer-Generated Designs

While obtaining a design patent is often quicker than obtaining a utility patent, current design patent application pendency is often still a lengthy period of time. Based on data released by the USPTO in July 2024 and shown below, over the previous year the average length of time from a design application filing date to the date that a first Office action was mailed was 16.7 months (Figure 1, below). In the month of July 2024, that average had crept up to 17.1 months. In the consumer product space especially, given the sometimes short shelf-life of a product, such a long examination pendency may not be suitable for a design patent applicant.Continue Reading Rocket Docket: Fast Track to Examination

As commerce moves more and more online, companies are facing unique challenges with respect to protecting their products, and the low cost of entry for online sellers has contributed to proliferations of knock-off and potentially counterfeit products being sold. This is particularly true when the product being sold is a simple disposable or replaceable product, such as a refill cartridge, a duster refill or a coffee pod.Continue Reading Indispensable Strategies for Protecting Disposable Products

Upending decades of continuity in the world of design patents, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”), sitting en banc in LKQ Corporation v. GM Global Technology Operations LLC, overturned the Rosen/Durling standard for obviousness of design patents, originally set forth in In re Rosen, 673 F.2d 388, 391 (C.C.P.A. 1982) and further refined in Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100, 103 (Fed. Cir. 1996), to align the test for obviousness for design patents with the U.S. Supreme Court precedent for utility patents originally set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) and refined in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007).  In so doing, the CAFC outlined the new framework by which design patent obviousness is to be determined at the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) during examination and post-grant proceedings, as well as during district court litigation involving infringement or invalidity challenges of design patents.Continue Reading R.I.P. Mr. Rosen: Federal Circuit Upends Longstanding Design Patent Obviousness Test

Quarles & Brady Partner and editor-in-chief of the firm’s Protecting the Product design rights blog, James Aquilina, Partner Michael Piery, Associate Rachel Ackerman, and patent professionals Harrison Powell and Audrey Jacobson attended the 17th Annual USPTO Design Day on May 9, 2024 at the USPTO’s Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.Continue Reading RECAP – 17th Annual USPTO Design Day

The beauty industry is ever changing, and makeup trends and viral product releases can drastically increase a company’s profits.  However, without proper legal protection, competitors can quickly replicate a product, eating into those profits. 

In this post, we will address how design patents and trade dress can be employed to provide protection for various beauty-related tools and products.Continue Reading Protecting the Product: Beauty Products

As we have previously written about here, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) has granted a petition for an en banc rehearing of LKQ Corp. et al v. GM Global Technology to rule on the issue of whether the current test for determining obviousness of design patents, i.e., the Rosen/Durling Standard, is proper in view of the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in KSR v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), which significantly broadened the obviousness inquiry for utility patents beyond the classic Teaching Suggestion Motivation (“TSM”) test.  The Rosen/Durling Standard was originally set forth in In re Rosen, 673 F.2d 388 (CCPA 1982) and both upheld and further clarified by the Federal Circuit in Durling v. Spectrum Furniture Co., 101 F.3d 100 (Fed. Cir. 1996). The Standard first requires the identification of a proper primary or Rosen reference, which is “a single reference, ‘a something in existence, the design characteristics of which are basically the same as the claimed design’” and then the modification of the primary reference with a secondary reference. Durling, 101 F.3d at 103 (quoting Rosen, 673 F.2d at 391). Continue Reading Design Patent Obviousness Inquiry Is Up for Review at the CAFC

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) is amending the rules of practice in patent cases by creating a separate space for individuals with educational backgrounds in design-related disciplines to qualify to practice before the USPTO in the limited capacity of design patent application proceedings. This new rule does not impact those already registered to practice any patent matters before the USPTO. The USPTO, with this rule amendment, will now recognize applicants to the design patent bar that have degrees in any of industrial design, product design, architecture, applied arts, graphic design, fine/studio arts, art teacher education, or a degree equivalent to one of the listed degrees. This list of educational backgrounds matches those sought out by the USPTO to fill out the ranks of the design patent examination corps.Continue Reading New USPTO Design Patent “Bar” to be Created in 2024