Quote:
Originally Posted by 5thWiggle
Design patents are for ornamentation or style of a functional object in a particular context. For instance, I could design a TV, slap a pair of angel wings on it, and get a design patent. I could stop others from producing TVs with angel wings (and possibly monitors, tablets and digital picture frames) because the angel wings are the ornamentation or style, while TV or digital display are the context. I could not stop someone from selling sofas with angel wings, that would be out of context. The context is almost as important as the design. You can get a design patent on a computer icon, lets say a pencil icon for edit. The context is a computer UI, so you could stop MS or Apple from using a pencil icon of the same or similar style in Windows or OSX. The computer UI as a context is new to design patents.
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There is no doubt that this TV (it was a family of models) was different from all others (I knew someone who had one) and deserved a Patent .