IPR Law:

means intellectual property law and this intellectual property law deals with the rules for
securing and enforcing legal rights to inventions, designs, and artistic works. Just as the law
protects ownership of personal property and real estate, so too does it protect the exclusive
control of intangible assets.
The purpose of these laws is to give an incentive for people to develop creative works that
benefit society, by ensuring they can profit from their works without fear of misappropriation by
others and thisIntellectual property is the product of the human intellect including creativity
concepts, inventions, industrial models, trademarks, songs, literature, symbols, names,
brands,....etc. Intellectual Property Rights do not differ from other property rights. They allow
their owner to completely benefit from his/her product which was initially an idea that developed
and crystallized. They also entitle him/her to prevent others from using, dealing or tampering
with his/her product without prior permission from him/her. He/she can in fact legally sue them
and force them to stop and compensate for any damages.Intellectual property is divided into two
categories: Industrial Property includes patents for inventions, trademarks, industrial designs,
and geographical indications. Copyright covers literary works (such as novels, poems, and
plays), films, music, artistic works (e.g., drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures) and
architectural design. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their
performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and broadcasters in their radio and
television program.

Types of Intellectual Property Rights

There are four types of intellectual property include:
1.Trade Secrets
2.Trademarks
3.Copyrights, and
4.Patents.
The first type of intellectual property right is a trade secret.

Trade secrets concern secret or proprietary information of commercial value. These are not
covered by specific statutory provisions as other types of IP are, although there could be aspects
of contract law or employment law that might be relevant in a particular case.The level of
protection conferred to trade secrets varies significantly from country to country. The notion of a
secret is mentioned in the Commission Regulation No 772/2004 as being"not generally known or
easily accessible". Indeed, trade secret represents an interest for its holder, which is often a
competitive advantage.Trade secrets do not receive any protection from intellectual property
rights, even though a doctrinal discussion exists on this issue and some authors consider trade
secrets themselves as an IP right.

In any case, they could fall under the scope of protection of civil law and unfair competition law.
In addition, some countries also provide penal sanctions for persons who fraudulently disclose an
industrial secret.

(2) Trademark:
A trademark is a signby which a business identifies its products or services and distinguishes
them from those supplied by competitors. It can be distinctive words, marks or other features. Its
purpose is to establish in the mind of the customer a link between all the different products
and/or services that the company offers and then distinguish them from those supplied by
competitors.

A trademark may consist of any signs capable of being represented graphically, particularly
words, including personal names, logos, letters, numerals, the shape of goods or of their
packaging, provided that such signs are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one
undertaking from those of other undertakings.

(3) Copyright:
Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators for their original literary, musical or
artistic works which allow them to control their subsequent use. These include for example:
# computer software
# drawings, maps, charts or plans
# photographs and films
# architectural works
# sculptures
# sound recordings
# TV and radio broadcasts

Copyright protection has two components:

# Moral rights, which are not transferable and give the creator the right to be identified as the
author of the work and the right to object to any distortion or mutilation of the work.
# Economic rights, which entitle the owner to control the use of its creation in a number of ways
(making copies, issuing copies to the public, performing in public, broadcasting, etc)and to
obtain an appropriate economic reward.

(4) Patent:
A patent is a title which provides its owner the right to prevent others from exploiting the
invention mentioned in the patent. It does not allow by itself making or selling an invention but it
rather gives the right to exclude others from making, using, selling or importingthe patented
invention.
This monopoly is granted for a specific field, in a defined country and for a maximum of 20
years in return for the full disclosure of the invention with the publication of its technical details.

Hence patent consists of a deal between inventors and society:

# for the inventor - a patent is the way to prevent competitorsfrom copying its invention
# for society - a patent consists on improving the innovation process by the public disclosure of
innovations. In return investment is encouraged by the delivery of exclusivity right and the
derived benefits.

Difference Between These Types of IPR:

Patents
A patent is a set of exclusive rights that a sovereign state grants an inventor or their assignee in
exchange for public disclosure of their inventions. Patents are issued for certain lengths of time
that depend on national laws. To receive a patent, an inventor needs to file a claim that meets the
minimum requirements of patentability. These requirements often include novelty (originality)
and non-obviousness. Once a patent is granted, it prevents others from using, selling,
manufacturing or distributing the invention without express permission.

Copyright
A copyright grants the right to copy a work of intellectual property. It also assigns credit for the
IP. Though copyrights were originally conceived as a way for the government to restrict printing,
they have since become a means of protecting authors’ rights to profit from their creative
endeavors. In addition to written works, copyrights can be assigned to other forms of IP
including songs, films, and works of art. Copyrights are issued for a finite amount of time,
usually between 50 and 100 years from the time of the author’s death.

Some of the exclusive rights that a copyright affords an author include the right to display the
work publicly, transmit or display the work by radio or video, to produce and sell copies of the
work and create derivative works for the original.

Trademark
A trademark is a distinctive sign or the symbol used by a business organization, individual or
other established legal the entity that is used to differentiate that entity’s products and services
from others. Trademarks are typically a word, phrase, design or symbol. Trademarks therefore
serve as a badge of origin for a brand in order to communicate that origin to consumers.

Trade Secret
A trade secret is a design, formula, process or other pieces of intellectual property that are not
known to the general public, which provides an economic advantage over competitors.
Businesses can take steps to protect their trade secrets including requiring employees to sign
nondisclosure agreements or contracts with non-compete clauses.

Procedure For Registration:

Step 1: Write down the invention (idea or concept) with as many details as possible
Collect all the information about your invention such as:
Area of invention
Description of the invention what it does
How does it work
Advantages of the invention
.
Step 2: include drawings, diagrams or sketches explaining the working of the invention
The drawings and diagrams should be designed so as to explain the working of the invention in a
better way with visual illustrations. They play an important role in the patent application.

Step 3: check whether the invention is patentable subject matter

All inventions may not be patentable, as per the Indian patent act there are certain inventions that
are not patentable explained in detail in (inventions not patentable)

Step 4a: Patentability search

The next step would be finding out whether the invention meets all patentability criteria as per
Indian patent act? That is,
# Novelty
# Non-obviousness
# Industrial application
# Enabling

Step 4b: Decide whether to go ahead with patent

The patentability report and opinion helps us to decide whether to go ahead with the patent or
not, chances are what you thought as a novel might already been patented or know to the public
in some form of information. Hence this reports saves lots of time, efforts and cost of the
inventor by helping him decide whether to go ahead with the patent filing process or not.

Step 5: Draft (write) patent application

In case we are at a very early stage in the research and development for our invention, then we
can go for a provisional application. It gives the following benefits:
# Secures filing date
# 12 months of time to file complete specification
# Low cost
After filing a provisional application, we secure the filing date which is very crucial in patent
world. We get 12 months of time to come up with the complete specification, upon expiry of 12
months, our patent application will be abandoned.

When we complete the required documents and our research work is at a level where we can
have prototype and experimental results to prove our inventive step then we can file complete
specification with the patent application.

Filing the provisional specification is the optional step, if we are at the stage where we have
complete information about your invention then we can directly go for complete specification.

Step 6: Publication of the application

Upon filing the complete specification along with the application for patent, the application is
published after 18 months of first filing.
An early publication request can be made along with prescribed fees if we do not wish to wait till
the expiry of 18 months from the date of filing for publishing our patent application.
Generally, the patent application is published within a month form request form early
publication.

Step 7: Request for examination

The patent application is examined only after receiving a request for the examination that is
RFE.Upon receiving this request the controller gives your patent application to a patent examiner
who examines the patent application with different patentability criteria like:
# Patentable subject matter
# Novelty
# Non-obviousness
# Inventive step
# Industrial application
# Enabling
The examiner creates a first examination report of the patent application upon reviewing it for
above terms.This is called patent prosecution. Everything happening to patent application before
grant of patent is generally called as patent prosecution.

The first examination report submitted to the controller by examiner generally contains prior arts
(existing documents before the date of filing) which are similar to the claimed the invention, and
the same is reported to the patent applicant.

Step 8: Respond to Objections

Majority of patent applicants will receive some type of objections based on the examination
report. The best thing to do it analyze the examination report with the patent professional (patent
agent) and creating a response to the objections raised in the examination report.

This is a chance for an inventor to communicate his novelty over prior arts found in the
examination report. The inventor and patent agent create and send a response to the examination
that tries to prove to the controller that his invention is indeed patentable and satisfies all
patentability criteria.

Step 9: Clearing all objections

This communication between controller and patent applicant is to ensure that all objections
raised in the patent application are resolved. (if not the patent will not be granted ) and the
inventor has his fair chance to prove his point and establish novelty and inventive step over
existing prior arts.
Upon finding the patent application in order of grant, it is granted to the patent applicant as early
as possible.

Step 10: Grant of Patent

The application would be placed in order for a grant once it is found to be meeting all
patentability requirements. The grant of patent is notified in the patent journal which is published
time to time.

Trade Mark:
# Trademark Registration Process
# TrademarkSearch

Before beginning the trademark registration process, the entrepreneur or a trademark

professional must conduct a trademark search of the trademark database. A trademark search will
provide information about an identical or similar trademark that has already been filed with the
trademark registry.

Trademark Filing Trademark registration can be obtained for words, logo, numerals, slogan,
device and more in India. Trademark registration provides the legal right of exclusivity for use of
the mark to the owner of the trademark. Trademark registration is, however, a long process
involving multiple steps. In this article, we cover the trademark registration process in
India.Once a trademark search is completed, the application for trademark registration can be
filed with the Trademark Registrar. The application for registration of the trademark must be
made in the prescribed manner and filed along with the fee for trademark registration.

A Trademark Registration application must contain the following information:

# Logo or the Trademark
# Name and address of the trademark owner
# Classification orTrademark Class
# Trademark used since the date
# Description of the goods or services

Trademark Application Allotment

Once the Trademark registration application is filed with the Trademark Registrar, a trademark
application allotment number is provided within one or two working days.

Vienna Codification
The Vienna Classification or Vienna Codification, established by the Vienna Agreement (1973),
is an international classification of the figurative elements of marks. Once the trademark
registration application is filed, the Trademark Registrar will apply theVienna Classification to
the trademarkbased on thefigurative elements of marks. While this work is in progress, the
trademark application status usually reflects as “Sent for Vienna Codification”.

Trademark Examination
Once Vienna Codification is completed, the trademark registration application will be allotted to
a Trademark Officer in the Trademark Registrar Office. The Trademark Officer would then
review the trademark application for correctness and issue a trademark examination report. The
Trademark Officer has the ability to accept the trademark registration application and allow for
trademark journal publication or object the trademark registration application. If the trademark
registration application is objected by the Trademark Office, the trademark applicant has the
right to appear before the Trademark Officer and address the objections. If the Trademark
Officer is satisfied with the justifications of the trademark applicant, the trademark would be
allowed for trademark journal publication. In case the Trademark Officer is not satisfied with the
justifications, the trademark applicant has the right to appeal the decision of the Trademark
Officer before the Intellectual Property Appellate Board.

Trademark Journal Publication

Once the trademark registration application is accepted by the Trademark Registrar, the proposed
trademark is published in the Trademark Journal. The trademark journal is published weekly and
contains all the trademarks that have been accepted by the Trademark Registrar. Once the
trademark is published in the trademark journal, the public has an opportunity to object the
trademark registration, if they believe they will be damaged by that registration. If there are no
objections filed within 90 days of that publication, the mark will typically be registered within 12
weeks – months time. If the trademark registration application is opposed by a third-party,
hearing will be called for by the Trademark Hearing Officer. Both the trademark applicant and
the opposing party have the chance to appear at the hearing and provide justifications for
registration or rejection of the trademark application. Based on the hearings and the evidence
presented, the Trademark Hearing Officer will determine if the trademark registration application
should be accepted or rejected. The decision of the Trademark Hearing Officer can also be
challenged by escalating to theIntellectual Property Appellate Board.

Trademark Registration
Once there are no objections or oppositions for the trademark registration application, the
trademark manuscript and trademark registration certificate will be prepared and sent to the
trademark application. Once the trademark registration certificate is issued, the trademark is
considered to be a registered trademark of the owner, granting the trademark owner exclusive
use of the mark. The® symbol can now be placed next to the logo or trademark.

Copyright:
The procedure for registration is as follows:
Application for registration is to be made on as prescribed in the first schedule to the Rules;
Separate applications should be made for registration of each work;
Each application should be accompanied by the requisite fee prescribed in the second schedule to
the Rules;
The applications should be signed by the applicant or the advocate in whose favor a
Vakalatnama or Power of Attorney has been executed. The Power of Attorney signed by the
party and accepted by the advocate should also be enclosed.

Time for Processing Application

After you file your application and receive diary number you have to wait for a mandatory period
of 30 days so that no objection is filed in the Copyright office against your claim that particular
work is created by you.

Protecting intellectual property

The importance of protecting intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) rights are valuable assets for your business - possibly among the most
important it possesses.
Why is it important to protect intellectual property rights?
Your IP rights are important because they can:
● set your business apart from competitors
● be sold or licensed, providing an important revenue stream
● offer customers something new and different
● form an essential part of your marketing or branding
● be used as security for loans
You may be surprised at how many aspects of your business can be protected. Your name and
logo, designs, inventions, works of creative or intellectual effort or trademarks that distinguish
your business can all be types of IP. Explore the different types of IP in detail in our guides:
● trade marks
● get patent protection for your business
● copyright for your business
● protecting and handling your design
Some IP rights are automatically safeguarded by IP law, but there are also other types of legal
protection you can apply for.
To exploit your IP fully, it makes strong business sense to do all you can to secure it. You can
then:
● protect it against infringement by others and ultimately defend in the courts your sole
right to use, make, sell or import it
● stop others using, making, selling or importing it without your permission
● earn royalties by licensing it
● exploit it through strategic alliances
● make money by selling it
Why Intellectual Property Rights?
The intellectual property rights were essentially recognized and accepted all over the world due
to some very important reasons. Some of the reasons for accepting these rights are:-
a. To provide incentive to the individual for new creations.
b. Providing due recognition to the creators and inventors.
c. Ensuring material reward for intellectual property.
d. Ensuring the availability of the genuine and original products
IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS-
Intellectual property rights are accepted all over the world due to some important reasons. They
were essentially recognized for the acceptations of these rights are:-
● Provides incentive to the individual for new creations.
● Providing due recognition to the creators and inventors.
● Ensuring the material reward for intellectual property.
● Ensuring the availability of the original products.
● For economic growth and advancement in technology sector protection of Intellectual
property protection is important.
● They are benefited for the growth of the business in the field of technology.
Four types of intellectual property you can use to protect your idea and how to use them
To protect your idea so that someone else cannot steal your idea, you need to secure one or more
of the four different types of intellectual property (IP). Every invention generally starts out as an
inventor’s trade secret. Before inventors market their inventions, they need to secure one or more
of the other forms of intellectual property protection – patents, trademarks and/or copyrights.
Table Of Contents
● Four types of intellectual property rights
● What does each type of intellectual property right protect?
● Multiple types of IP rights can be used to protect an invention
● i. Trade Secret Protection
○ How to identify your trade secret?
○ When to protect your idea as a trade secret rather than securing a patent?
● ii. Trademark protection
● iii. Copyright Protection
● iv. Patent Protection
○ How to determine which type of patent is better for your invention?
○ Utility patent basics:
○ Design patent basics:
■ Situations where you might want to seek a design patent:
 ■ Situation 1: To block importation of overseas manufacturer
overruns
■ Situation 2: Products sold in sets
■ Situation 3: Large market leaders
■ Related Articles for Protecting Inventions
FOUR TYPES OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
The four types of intellectual property include:
1. Trade Secrets
2. Trademarks
3. Copyrights, and
4. Patents.
The first type of intellectual property right is a trade secret. All inventions generally start out as a
trade secret of the inventor. Inventors have an instinctual desire to keep their ideas secret. To
market your invention, you should protect your idea with one or more of the other types of
intellectual property rights:
patents, trademarks, and
copyrights.

WHAT DOES EACH TYPE OF

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
RIGHT PROTECT?
To protect your idea effectively
when you launch your product,
you need to utilize one or more of
the other three types of intellectual
property before you commence
your marketing activities. The
table below illustrates each of the
four different types of intellectual
properties and what they might be used to protect in a broader sense.
You must select the most suitable form of patent protection to effectively protect your idea or
device. The information below highlights how you might determine which one of these
intellectual property rights might be best for you to use to protect your invention. The discussion
will also highlight and provide further clarification on some of the more significant information
provided in the table.
MULTIPLE TYPES OF IP RIGHTS CAN BE USED TO PROTECT AN INVENTION
Most people do not know or have not really realized that they are able to protect their invention
using multiple types of IP rights. However, most products can be protected by all four types of
intellectual property rights. Take, for example, a can of Coca-Cola®. The brand, “Coca-Cola,” is
a trademark. The formula for the actual soda is a trade secret, while copyright protects the
packaging art. The shape of the Coca-Cola® bottle is protected by both (1) a design patent and
(2) a trademark (i.e. trade dress).

Likewise, your product can most likely be protected by one or more of the
different types of intellectual property rights. It is important to parse out
which aspects of the invention or idea are suitable for patent protection,
trademark protection, or copyright protection, and which aspects of the
invention or idea should be protected by trade secrets.
Be open-minded when you think through the types of intellectual property
that might be applicable to protect your invention.
I. TRADE SECRET PROTECTION
How to identify your trade secret?
To identify the trade secrets in your idea, you need to understand the definition of a trade secret.
A “trade secret” is any valuable information that is not publicly known and of which the owner
has taken “reasonable” steps to maintain secrecy. These include information, such as a business
plans, customer lists, ideas related to your research and development cycle, etc.
Trade secrets are not registered with a governmental body. All you need to do to establish your
information as such is to treat it as a trade secret. Only those with a need to know should have
access to your trade secret information. Disclosures should be done only under a nondisclosure
agreement. When someone misappropriates your trade secret, you have to prove in a court of
law that the information qualifies as your trade secret. You have to show that the information
that was misappropriated was valuable because of its secrecy and you must show the steps you
took to keep it secret. Put simply, the owner of the trade secret information must prove that the
confidential information fits the definition of a trade secret given above.
Trade secret protection lasts until the information is no longer valuable, the information is not
secret, or the owner no longer takes reasonable steps to maintain its secrecy.
Trade secret law specifically protects the misappropriation of trade secret information. This
means that a wrongful or nefarious act must accompany the acquisition of the information. For
example, if someone acting as an imposter steals trade secret information from its owner, the
owner can sue the imposter for misappropriation of trade secrets. However, if the owner
voluntarily gives trade secret information to an individual without limitation, there has been no
misappropriation, and the owner cannot sue. It is also possible that the information may lose its
status as a trade secret. This can occur if there has been a lack of reasonable effort to keep the
information secret and/or the information is de facto no longer a secret.
When to protect your idea as a trade secret rather than securing a patent?
Most inventions start off as trade secrets which provides short-term protection prior to the
marketing of your invention. Inventors are often initially cautious about revealing their
inventions to others, even their patent attorney, and this is a good instinct to have.
Trade secret protection is not appropriate for the long-term protection of any ideas which can be
readily ascertained by reverse engineering or for inventions that can be independently created. If
the information can be reverse engineered or independently created, then there is no nefarious
act. If there is no nefarious act that accompanies the acquisition of the information, there is
generally no misappropriation or wrongful appropriation of the trade secret information.
Generally, trade secret protection is not optimal for mechanical or software products since both
utilize a user interface that is available to the public and can therefore be reverse engineered.
Trade secret protection may be optimal and sufficient for ideas and inventions that can be used
secretly and therefore could not be reverse engineered (e.g. recipes).
II. TRADEMARK PROTECTION
Your brand needs to be protected because you do not want to invest time and money only to find
out later on that you have to switch to a different trademark because someone else already using
your trademark. In this instance, you would be infringing on that person’s trademark and will
have to switch to a different trademark.

Trademarks protect brands. The name of the product associated with the product or a service is
called the trademark. A trademark is anything by which customers can identify a product or the
source of a product, such as a name associated with the product. Typically, that would be the
words that you use to refer to your product or service. When the brand or trademark is made up
of words, we refer to this as a wordmark.
Other things can serve as your trademark. For example, sounds, colors, smells, and anything else
that can bring the product and/or its owner to the minds of a consumer can serve as your
trademark. The most common types of trademarks are wordmarks, logos, and slogans. If the
product configuration (e.g. a Coca-Cola® bottle) or packaging (e.g. Tiffany’s blue packaging)
are nonfunctional and recall the product’s maker (i.e. source of the product) for consumers, the
configuration can be protected and registered as a trademark.
If you are starting out, protect the wordmark first. Then, you can seek trademark protection for
the other forms of trademarks if you have the available funds to do so and if it makes sense in
your overall marketing and business strategy.
To properly protect your trademark, you should conduct a search to find out if others are using a
similar mark to yours. If not, then file a trademark application to get your trademark registered.
In the table, registration of a trademark was optional because you accrue trademark rights simply
by using the mark in commerce. When you sell a product or perform a service under a brand,
trademark law gives you common law trademark rights that you can assert against others in your
small geographical region where you used the mark. Hence, to obtain trademark rights, you do
not need to register your trademark but there are significant advantages for doing so such as
nationwide rights and the right to block others from securing a registered trademark with the
United States Patent and Trademark Office.
III. COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
Most products have a copyright. The images and words on the product packaging, the label, the
product itself and the webpage can all be protected with a copyright. The advantages of a
copyright registration are that it is inexpensive to secure, and the law allows you to demand
attorney fees from infringers. Often times, your attorney fees are more costly than your damages
due to someone copying your images and words without your authorization. Hence, being able to
demand your attorney fees from the infringer is a significant leverage that can be used to force
infringers to settle early on in the legal process. Without a copyright registration, you would have
to pay your own attorney fees.
Copyrights protect original works of authorship that are fixed in a “tangible medium of
expression.” This means that the authored or creative work has been written down on a piece of
paper, saved on an electronic storage device (e.g. hard drive or flash drive), or preserved in some
other tangible format. Examples of copyrightable works include movies, videos, photos, books,
diaries, articles, and software. Copyright does not protect ideas or useful items, which is the
function of patents. Although software is a functional item, it can be protected by copyrights due
to the creativity used in the selection, ordering, and arrangement of the various pieces of code in
the software.
You automatically have a copyrighted product in your creative expressions at the time that they
are fixed in a tangible medium of expression. The copyright lasts for a very long time. For any
work created on or after January 1, 1978, the term of copyright protection is the entirety of the
author’s life plus seventy years after the author’s death. For works made for hire as well as
anonymous and pseudonymous works, the duration of copyright is ninety-five years from
publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
A copyright does not need to be registered, but registration does have significant advantages.
You can file your own copyright application at www.copyright.gov. Importantly, if your
copyright is registered, your attorney fees can be shifted to the infringer as discussed above, and
you can ask the judge to award statutory damages. Statutory damages allow a court to impose
liability on an infringer for up to 150,000 dollars even if the damages are significantly less than
that amount.
Related article: Gray market goods for copyrighted products no longer illegal
IV. PATENT PROTECTION
Two types of patents may be obtained:
1. Utility (Function) and
2. Design (Aesthetic).
The following discussion will let you know how to identify which type of patent is optimal to
protect your invention. Similar to the discussion above about securing multiple types of IP rights
for your product or invention, you might be able to secure both a utility and design patent to
protect your invention.
How to determine which type of patent is better for your invention?
If when you describe your invention to others, you describe the invention in terms of its function
or utility, a utility patent application would be the best type of protection.
If the invention is described in terms of its aesthetics, a design patent application would be the
best type of protection. The design patent protects the ornamentation, sculpture, pattern design,
layout, and other aesthetic features of a product.
Sometimes, you will explain your product by using words that describe both function and
aesthetics. In that case, you may be able to get both types of patents. However, if funds are
limited, you may have to choose one of the two types of patents that is better suited for your
invention. Seek competent patent counsel in this instance since a patent attorney would be best
able to help you make the right decision.
Utility patent basics:
To get a utility patent, you need to apply for a patent with the USPTO. If you start to market your
product without applying for the patent, then eventually (i.e., after one year) your idea will be
dedicated to the public.
The term for a utility patent is generally 20 years from the filing of your nonprovisional patent
application and starts immediately when the patent office issues your patent.
Design patent basics:
To get a design patent, you need to apply for a registration with the USPTO. If you start to
market your product without applying for the registration, then eventually (i.e., after one year)
your idea will be dedicated to the public.
The term for a design patent is 15 years from the grant date of your design patent.
Situations where you might want to seek a design patent:
Design patents are useful only in a few situations. This is because if the infringer changes the
look of the product so that it does not look like what is shown in the design patent, then there is
no design patent infringement. The following is a non-exhaustive list of situations where a
design patent might be useful.
Situation 1: To block importation of overseas manufacturer overruns
Design patents are useful for blocking the sale of counterfeits, the importation of overrun (i.e.
excess production), or rejected products that have been manufactured overseas for the inventor.
These imports will be identical to the drawings in the design patent, and if imported into the
United States, they may be blocked by Customs. If these products do enter into the United States,
the importers, distributors, users, and manufacturers may be sued for infringement.
Situation 2: Products sold in sets
Design patents are also useful for products sold in sets (e.g. furniture) because buyers must
purchase products that look like the original product to maintain the complete sets. By obtaining
a patent on these types of products, you can block others from selling products that look like
your product covered in the design patent.
Situation 3: Large market leaders
Design patents may also be useful for large manufacturers. For example, Apple, Inc. obtained
several design patents for various parts of the iPhone including the housing and the arrangement
of the icons on the display.