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The drawings must disclose all distinctive characteristics of the plant capable of visual representation. When color is a distinguishing characteristic, drawings must be in color, with applications filed on paper requiring two duplicate copies. The drawing should conform to the same rules as other drawings, except that view numbers and reference characters are unnecessary unless required by the examiner. All color drawings should include a 1-inch margin at the top for office marking.
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How does a design patent differ from other patents?
The agency had over 14,000 employees in 2023, of whom approximately 60% of them were patent examiners while the remaining worked in the legal and technical areas. Before you fill out your design patent application, title your product. Most titles have only one or two words that label the design based on consumer words, such as "chair," "wind chime," or "fish tank." Design patents are key for protecting the unique visual features of products, from their shape to surface designs. They aim to prevent similar items from being made or sold and are less costly and complex than utility patents. Some examples of design patents include ornamental designs on jewelry, automobiles or furniture, as well as packaging, fonts, and computer icons (such as emojis).
What Is a Patent in Simple Terms? With Examples
(2) A marked-up copy of any amended drawing figure, including annotations indicating the changes made, must be provided when required by the examiner. (ii) A replacement section with markings to show all changes relative to the previous version of the section. (2) Numbers and letters identifying the views must be simple and clear and must not be used in association with brackets, circles, or inverted commas.
Design patent cost and registration time
When necessary, a view of a large machine or device in its entirety may be broken into partial views on a single sheet, or extended over several sheets if there is no loss in facility of understanding the view. Partial views drawn on separate sheets must always be capable of being linked edge to edge so that no partial view contains parts of another partial view. A smaller scale view should be included showing the whole formed by the partial views and indicating the positions of the parts shown. When a portion of a view is enlarged for magnification purposes, the view and the enlarged view must each be labeled as separate views. This information includes the registration number of each practitioner having a power of attorney in the application (preferably by reference to a customer number). Providing this information in the application data sheet does not constitute a power of attorney in the application (see § 1.32).
Applying for a patent
Other symbols, which are not universally recognized, may be used, subject to approval by the Office, if they are not likely to be confused with existing conventional symbols, and if they are readily identifiable. (d) Inconsistencies between application data sheet and other documents. For inconsistencies between information that is supplied by both an application data sheet under this section and other documents.
Amendments to application
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You will also need to complete the application data sheet, which will give the basic description and information about both the design and the invention it was created for. You can download a copy of the application data sheet from the USPTO website. Aside from the application data sheet, the application for a design patent will not be a specific form. Instead, you will need to follow the formatting guidelines that the USPTO has laid out. The USPTO receives more than 500,000 patent applications per year with just over 300,000 of them granted.
Apply for a patent
This generally includes all inventions except compositions of matter or processes, though drawings may be useful with many processes. No description, other than a reference to the drawing, is ordinarily required. The claim shall be in formal terms to the ornamental design for the article (specifying name) as shown, or as shown and described. The use of shading in views is encouraged if it aids in understanding the invention and if it does not reduce legibility. Shading is used to indicate the surface or shape of spherical, cylindrical, and conical elements of an object.
Since June 8, 1995, inventors have had the option of filing a provisional utility or plant patent application. This provides a lower-cost first patent filing in the United States and gives U.S. applicants parity with foreign applicants. A provisional helps establish an early effective filing date in a patent application and permits the term “Patent Pending” to be applied in connection with the invention. An oath or declaration is a formal statement you must make in a design, plant, nonprovisional utility, or reissue application. Either form PTO/AIA/01 or PTO/AIA/08 may be used for the required declaration in a utility application.
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Sometimes, an examiner will ask you to reply to the rejection because your design is patentable. If you disagree with their instructions, you must be very specific with your arguments. If you are working for a company or licensing your design, you will need to sign an assignment form. This will give the ownership of the design patent to the company you are working with.
If your response, including amendments, to the First Action on the Merits overcomes all objections/rejections, the examiner will issue a notice of allowance, and a patent will be published after payment of the issue fee. A working model, or other physical exhibit, is not ordinarily required, since the description of the invention in the specification and drawings must be full, clear, and complete enough to understand the invention without the aid of a model. A working model may be requested in applications for alleged perpetual motion devices. The required oath or declaration and the statements required for other applications must include a statement that you, the inventor, have asexually reproduced the new plant variety. For a newly found plant, the oath or declaration must also state that the plant was found in a cultivated area.
To be admitted to this register, attorneys and agents must comply with USPTO regulations requiring good moral character and reputation, as well as certain legal, scientific, and technical qualifications. Admission to the exam requires a college degree in engineering or physical science, or its equivalent. (b) The oath or declaration required of the applicant must comply with § 1.63.
Patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to anyone who has invented a new, original ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The ornamental characteristics must be embodied in or applied to such an article. The subject matter may relate to the configuration or shape of an article, surface ornamentation applied to it, or the combination of both. A surface ornamentation design is inseparable from the article to which it is applied and cannot exist alone.
For applications filed before May 13, 2015, patents last for 14 years from the date of the filing. Once your application has been assigned for examination, your examiner will review the contents of your application to determine if it meets all legal requirements for a patent to be granted. This is to see if the claimed invention is new, useful, and non-obvious, and if the application meets patent statute requirements and rules of practice. A design patent may claim all or only an innovative part of a design. And because design patents can include only one patentable design per patent, designers often find it useful to get more than one design patent per product—covering different sub-aspects or iterations of a single product.
You must also note whether you relied on any federal research or development to create your invention. A design patent protects the way a manufactured product looks but not the way it works or how it's structured. Businesses can protect their intellectual property (IP) rights over an original design by applying for patent protection. This should be done before entering the market to prevent a competitor from copying and profiting from your design.
For more information, see A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application. This quick, inexpensive way for you to establish a U.S. filing date for your invention can be claimed in a later-filed nonprovisional application. A provisional application is automatically abandoned 12 months after its filing date and is not examined.
While legal representation is not required, those who are not skilled in applying for patents may not be able to get a patent that adequately protects a particular design. The most important element of the design patent application is a drawing disclosure. The drawing disclosure illustrates the design with either a drawing or a black and white photograph of the claimed design. Except in specific situations such as when an applicant has requested non-publication, utility and plant patent applications are published before a patent is granted. Publication occurs after the expiration of an 18-month period following the earliest effective filing date or priority date claimed by an application.
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