Like many patent owners or aspiring patent owners, at some point you may have found yourself in a situation where design protection was needed, but all you had was narrow utility protection. Perhaps a decision had been made years ago to forgo a design filing in favor of a utility application, and in retrospect, that decision was a costly mistake. Sure, your disclosure may have been robust and your drawings comprehensive, but the available claim scope is not as broad as you would like, and now a competitor is selling a product that looks a lot like your product but does not infringe any of your utility claims.Continue Reading While There is an Active Utility Application, There is Design Hope

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

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

Over the past two decades, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has been working on a Design Law Treaty focused on aligning examination and procedural guidelines associated with what have historically been referred to as “industrial designs.” One main goal of the Design Law Treaty is to help designers in domestic and foreign jurisdictions obtain design protection faster, easier, and cheaper. In theory, the Design Law Treaty would help to streamline the registration formalities in jurisdictions that are signatories to the treaty and reduce the amount of “red tape” that comes with obtaining design protection across different jurisdictions.Continue Reading USPTO Request for Public Comments Regarding the WIPO Design Law Treaty

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

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