Design Patents

In recent years, companies have increasingly come to recognize the value of design patents to protect their intellectual property (IP). For example, the dispute between Apple and Samsung over smartphone and tablet computers involved several patents, some of which were design patents. The jury in that case awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages. The jury’s award was notable not only for its size, but also because it was based on the infringement of Apple’s design patents that covered the iPhone’s shape—a rectangular border with rounded corners—and the appearance of icons on its home screen. In light of the increasing prominence of design patents, many companies that traditionally relied on utility patents are reevaluating their strategies for protecting IP. They’re paying attention to the merits of acquiring design patents as another way to protect their products and buttress their overall IP portfolios. Be sure to visit the IEEE Computer Society’s website for the podcast that accompanies this article: www.computer.org/portal/web/ computingnow/computing-and-the-law.