#21 - Design patent applications: divided to conquer

The number of design patent applications has increased in the past few years, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with the fact that the number of new ideas has grown. A good percentage of this growth can be attributed to the fact that the filing parties are filing a group of design patent applications that claim a small piece of the overall design. (See the full story here on PatentlyO)

This is actually quite easily done, because in each patent filing only a small portion of the submitted designs and drawings have to vary from patent to patent. For example, in these patent application drawings, the solid lines can represent what is claimed, and everything that isn't being filed for can be illustrated in dotted lines. This means that, for each application, the only thing that needs to be changed from patent to patent is that you make parts of the drawing dotted and other parts undotted for whichever claim you represent.

Thinking about this, it's actually very strategic, because by dividing a design patent like this, competitors will find it difficult to even copy a small portion of the design. Furthermore, if a company is looking to make additional changes later on in the future, they can make changes and the patent can still hold to protect their design.

Translating this into what it means for mobile wireless design patents, we already know that design is such a contended space. The big case that everyone knows about is Samsung vs. Apple in the case of rounded corners. If any device maker goes to lengths to create a separate filing for each piece of the design, then competitors will find it difficult to even use a similar idea without infringing on the claim. Though at the same time, I think this would be somewhat anti-competitive given that competitors rely on the same basis of design. But it will then be a race to who can come up with the novel designs the fastest, then to patent each piece of the design, and conquer competitors.