Quote:
Originally Posted by aceflor
It's in german, sorry for that, but to clarify what it says is that the court did agree to halt the distribution momentarily to study the case and that it is not a patent breach case but a design copying case.
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Sorry aceflor, but esthetic designs
are patentable and, in a number of cases, rigorously defended. Most notable cases I know of are in the field of electric guitars. Fender, Gibson et al routinely go after clones of their more successful models. Most rulings are in their favour even though the name on the headstock is different. The criteria for design patents seems to be that a consumer can tell "at a reasonable glance" that the object was indeed produced by the patent holder, and not a competitor.
Link to one of Apple's design patents