In the US, designs can be patented
According to the US Patent & Trademark Office:
A design consists of the visual ornamental characteristics embodied in, or applied to, an article of manufacture. […] A design patent protects only the appearance of the article and not structural or utilitarian features.
Design patents are often overlooked and patent searchers often deliberately exclude them from their searches. Normally, patent searchers focus on utility patents – the patents that cover the “structural or utilitarian features”. Every year, IFI CLAIMS publishes its list of the top US patent assignees.
See for example IFI CLAIMS 2015 Top 50. When compiling our Top 50 list, IFI includes only Utility patent grants and applications. Until now, IFI has not published a Top 50 for Design Patents.
But IFI CLAIMS has not forgotten about design patents and we do think they are important. US Design patents (and plant patents) are maintained in the IFI CLAIMS Global Patent Database. Design patents are available through the CLAIMS Direct Web Service and API.
2015 US design patent top 50
For the record, here is the 2015 US Design Top 50:
There were a total of 26,000 design patents issued by the USPTO in 2015. This compares with 298,407 utility patents issued.
Design patents are used less frequently than utility patents. In 2015, Samsung received 5,072 utility patents (ranking it #2 behind IBM’s 7,355). Samsung tops the Design patent list with 1,428 design patents. This list is based on IFI CLAIMS Standardized Assignee data and CLAIMS Direct.
Design Classifications
There are patent classifications specific to design patents. Here are the top 10 patent classifications in 2015. The classification code, record count and definition are shown. Also shown is a recent example of a design in each classification. CLAIMS Direct provides these drawings through the attachment API.
Top 10 2015 design patent classifications
Classification D21 “Games, Toys and Sports Equipment” is ranked #12. This category provides what are arguably the best images, such as US-D765191-S1 “Toy doll” from Little Kids Inc.
Apple vs. Samsung
Looking at the Top 10 classifications, we can see that D14 “Recording, Communication, or Information Retrieval Equipment” dominates the other classifications. D14 illustrates why Design patents are very important.
According to Wikipedia:
On January 5, 2007, 4 days before the iPhone was introduced to the world, Apple filed a suite of 4 design patents covering the basic shape of the iPhone. These were followed up in June of that year with a massive filing of a color design patent covering 193 screen shots of various iPhone graphical user interfaces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.
And,
In two separate lawsuits,[48][49] Apple accused Samsung of infringing on … four design patents (United States Patent Nos. US-D504889-S1, US-D593087-S1, US-D618677-S1, and US-D604305-S1).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.
The result of the first trial:
On August 24, 2012 the jury returned a verdict largely favorable to Apple. It found that Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple’s design and utility patents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electronics_Co.
There have been many appeals.
On October 11, 2016, the case was argued before the US Supreme Court. See http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/11/13241446/samsung-vs-apple-supreme-court-design-patents.
Three utility patents were also cited in the complaint, but designs were critical in the outcome. These design patents are summarized below – they all belong to the D14 classification and all are assigned to Apple Inc:
It is interesting that not only is D14 (covering communications equipment) the top design classification, but that Samsung is the top recipient of design patents. In 2015, they received nearly 8 times as many design patents as Apple did.
What is the final word on this case? We don’t know yet. On October 11, the issue was argued before the US Supreme Court.
