Patent Attorney and Founder
Hey everyone we’re here talking about how to file a design patent application and uh hold on a second oh sorry I left my airpod in did you know that airpods super popular I think Apple sold over 900 000 this in 2018 alone but did you think that there’s both design and utility pad protection we’d be right so airpods are covered under at least one us design patent okay the case together with the two air pods under design d-801 314 there are 44 total patents that protect the Apple airpods foreign
[Music]
patents and what it means to put together an application or submittal to the patent office I want to introduce both ideas the inventor’s guide to patents I wrote this book just a year and a half ago and I encourage anyone out there that’s interested in getting into the subject matter maybe it’s just starting or kind of wants to refine and kind of take the dust off of the knowledge you might have had in the years past this is the book to start with okay it’s at 110 pages easy read um not legal jargon this cuts through all the major questions that almost every inventor has about what’s the major difference between eligibility patentability the difference between patents and Trade Secrets all the good stuff so please go to our website at bold ip.com and pick up your free copy today so without further Ado I want to introduce myself I’m JD hoovener I’m a registered USPTO patent attorney managing partner here and CEO of both Patton’s Law Firm I’m here today to talk with you about design patterns and what it means to get to your design filed and patented with the USPTO so first and foremost with the with the overall idea of designs I understand the major difference between design and utility design patterns protect just the ornamental way that something looks right back to our airpods right you see how this is curved and shaped and it has you know fairly symmetrical edges but the fact that it has this hinge and it moves seamlessly that’s not covered under the design pad just the fact that it looks like this right and then it has a hinge on the top and it’s proportionally sized so it’s on the the upper portion and that this shape is sort of a hemispherical right all those details about just the appearance that’s what’s protected under design patties so the shape is really the heart right the ornamental appearance of what your invention is that’s what you’re going to be able to protect with a design pad all right and so what I want to do is walk with you a little bit about the Essences of the application okay what are the different parts of it if you’re in a hurry and you can’t watch this whole video I’ve set up some times in the table of contents format I need to jump to the section you want to hear more about I want to mention first off just like utility pens one of the key thing about design patents is measuring patentability and you start by doing a novelty search so with design patents it’s a little bit harder to do keyword searching whereas utilities of course you have all the functional aspects the written description there’s a whole lot more to work with in terms of what to search for the design patent application or a potential app all you have is the shape okay it’s hard to search shapes now with technology we’re getting better and better but it is essential to conduct a search to confirm that what you’re what you’ve created this ornamental shape is actually new so do your own homework first and then hire a professional to get the search done right once we confirm there’s nothing else out there and that we don’t think it’s an obvious variant of another prior art that’s been filed you’ve got it you don’t have to obviously you don’t have to show utility because that’s not what you’re going to eventually be able to claim the next step is the application drafting the preamp the Preamble is called the Preamble right just like the Constitution it sets the stage this is your title and describes who the inventor or Ventures are the title needs to be quite simple and again it needs to describe the shape and the Contour the ornamentation those are the kinds of attributes you should be highlighting in the title you shouldn’t be coloring it with any functional language and you shouldn’t you should not be embellishing the title keep it really short and sweet a nice example for a title might be dual earbud compartment right something similar like that that’s it and move on so Simple Story about how to make sure that your invention is not functional all right and to decide whether or not to file a design versus a utility there’s a Supreme Court case brandier brand new you can highlight that here this case was all about a bike rack you know you’ve probably seen bike racks that look like this all around town this has sort of become the standard it started out actually being a work of art okay this was a sculpture that this artist created now it had a sort of an industrial application and it was awarded industrial design of the year right way back when the interesting thing is that it is unprotectable under copyright law because of the nature that it is indeed extremely functional so there’s this interplay between functionality under design under utility patents and copyright okay so there’s utility and copyright you have sort of this boundary that as soon as something becomes functional it belongs in the domain of utility same goes for your design right if you’re out there you’re an artist and you’re designing something as soon as it becomes functional it’s not going to be eligible for design pad and application you’re going to get rejected which you’re going to be able to claim is merely the ornamental appearance okay what it looks like that back to that shape discussion we talked about before what do those curves look like what are the relationships and the proportions that’s what’s protectable under design so in the application itself you’re going to need to mention across references the cross references are really the other applications the patent applications that you’re that you’re being able to stand on their shoulders right you’re you’re using what’s been done before whether it’s you know string you’re tying your earbuds the string or you’re putting them together in some compartment but it’s wired right those are the references right and the actual shapes and designs that came before you if you’ve got to give Credence and give give some credit to those inventors before you that’s what the examiners will do and they perform their search they’re going to start with those references and the citations that you have the claim right so we talked about in separate video about oh my gosh all the hard work goes into writing a utility claim set design patterns it’s one line I mean I’m serious it’s one line it simply says the ornamental design as shown and described that’s it everything everything about your invention lies on the drawings or photographs in rare cases so drawings in a in a design pack have additional requirements on top of those that are required at a utility level the design patents must show all surfaces okay and so if the surface has depth to it curvature it must have proper shading and shading is huge in terms of design patterns and so at on for my cars we’ve got a dedicated patent drafter that works with our inventors and our patent attorney to make sure they capture that three-dimensional shape perfectly so if you want to know more about this I want to make sure you know that there is a Blog on our website at bold ip.com go look up and see how to file a design patent I’ve got what I’m talking about here today in great detail okay you go inquire there ask additional questions comment please give us a like on this video it’s going to help us reach a really broad audience someday and I’m so excited that you’re here and you’re a catalyst helping us pay it forward and serve an inventor to chase their Visionary dream make it come true so you’ve gone through you’ve laid out the description the claim you’ve got the Preamble The inventors are laid out and now you’ve gone through and starting to draw out your your drawings so this is again the heart of the patent design patent is the drawing itself the shading the different angles and the way you can view the patent in those drawings is also important right but you can’t miss this right this is the number one thing to get out of the drawings all right if you’re going to think about one thing focus on this patent drawings design patent drawings take a careful look some have solid line and some have dashed line outlining parts of the invention the parts that are in solid line that is what’s being claimed the parts of the drawing that are in dashed lines are not being claimed now is a very strategic approach to what features of that invention that are in dashed line and what are in solid light so if you remember back to a different video talking about utility pads we tend to want to claim a very essential core skeleton Bare Bones most simplest version in our independent claims the same approach applies but we want to hit the inventor the broadest rights possible we want to build a only patent right only claim the The Core Essence right that that limited amount of disclosure so that then they can get the rights for any additional bells and whistles that are added on it so take a look at at this design pattern it’s just patented by app all right so you can see here some aspects are in solid line and some are in dash line yeah that means for the area that’s in dashed that shape could take on any shape right it could be that Contour could totally change but what’s not going to change and what this rights holder Apple doesn’t have the ability to change is what’s in solid line that’s what’s being claimed in this design path so I’m so happy to have been able to share this with you design patents are near and dear to me one thing I want to make sure to mention is that many many cases a utility pad application right it should also be file right if you are an inventor and you’ve got a new product that has a beautiful shape and ornamentation to it you think that’s protectable don’t stop there if what it’s doing is providing valuable functionality let’s take a look and see if we can also lock down what your invention is doing in addition to the way it looks
alright and so design patterns aren’t any different we’re going to still need to gather all the formal documents to get them submitted to the patent office that’s going to include the cover sheet and oauthor declaration the drawings and the written description along with that claim we talked about so collecting all that information making sure that it’s all perfect USPTO fees are paid for that is all you need to get your patent pending last but not least you’re using the electronic filing system this is the last step working with your patent attorney and a paralegal if they have one to get everything filed electronically to save you some money that’s gonna be the way to go so before I go I want to make sure you give us a like share this video and talk about in a comments below any additional questions you might have follow-up feedback on the video I’m always looking to improve last but not least I want to also give the opportunity to please read through my book bold ideas the inventor’s guide to patents this gives you all the essential nuggets about design patents utility patents and more it’s available for free via PDF download on our website at bold ip.com so it’s been great talking with you here today I’m your host JD huvener USPTO patent attorney and managing partner here at bold patents from all of us at bold go big go bowl
go big