I understand that design patents are worth only a fraction of their utility patent namesakes. Each year, the number of design patent applications are only a small fraction of the number of utility patent applications filed., and design patents are – on average – less valuable than utility patents.
I do believe that utility patent law can learn something from design patent law. Let's start with the recent en banc design patent case of Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa. In that case, the Federal Circuit defined the meaning of "infringement" of a design patent. The test created by the court looks to whether an "ordinary observer" who is "familiar with the prior art" would find an accused design "substantially similar" to the patented design. Thus, the test looks for substantial similarity in the context of the prior art.
"When the differences between the claimed and accused design are viewed in light of the prior art, the attention of the hypothetical ordinary observer will be drawn to those aspects of the claimed design that differ from the prior art. And when the claimed design is close to the prior art designs, small differences between the accused design and the claimed design are likely to be important to the eye of the hypothetical ordinary observer." |
Another way of interpreting the Egyptian Goddess test is that the scope of infringement varies inversely with the scope of prior art. When a patented design is in a field crowded with similar prior designs, the only infringing designs will be those that are strikingly similar to the patented design yet different from the prior art. Alternatively, when the patented design stands alone as a breakthrough design, the potential variety of infringing activity actually increases.
I like the idea of rewarding breakthrough innovations that go beyond ordinary invention. Here, Egyptian Goddess does that by increasing the potential claim scope when the invention goes well beyond the prior art. The question here is whether the law of utility patents can be arranged to likewise provide the best rewards for the most innovative creations.
