Service
Our Services : Patent : Design Patent Application
Design Patent Application
Design Patent Application Drafting and Prosecution
Quality Level Option
Our Standard Design Patent Application legal service (Large Corporate) level is normally about $2500; however, for micro/small entities (< 20 employees, or individuals) we offer a 50% reduction down to a “Good Quality” $1000 flat fee for your product design, which is our fee to legally prepare, file, and manage the filing process for each case. This includes a standard set of formal drawings to cover one invention/product version, done to strict USPTO legal standards. That is for our “Good” Quality level. We offer higher (Top) and lower (Basic) quality Design Patent legal work levels, which micro/small entity fee is currently $1500 for “Top”, and $750 for “Basic”.
Quality Level Overview
For those seeking the best scope/level of product protection, we have a “Top” quality level.
In our “Basic” service level, we pretty much capture your submitted product images into valid Design patent drawings principally drawn to your exact product.
In our standard “Good” service level, we make a moderate “low hanging fruit” effort to broaden the scope/strength of your Design Patent towards avoiding obvious/common “design-around” pitfalls and loopholes.
In our “Top” quality level legal drafting work more skilled members of our technical and legal team get involved in efforts towards sizing up and structuring and establishing the broadest scope of protection in the Design Patent. In the “Top” level typical issues, considered and worked upon include:
· identifying portion(s) or feature(s) of the product that are not particularly novel or important to the design, and, thus, should not be claimed (i.e., required to be in any infringing product), claiming the more novel features.
· we are available without extra charge to help you sort out simple situations if you have more than one product version (e.g., you have two or more product appearances/shaping), thus most likely two or more inventions may exist in your system design.
· we are available without extra charge to help you sort out simple situations where you may have a product with separate (potentially independent) parts and whether or not those are intended to limit the design or if they should not be claimed.
In this way, this “Top” level generally provides much more protection, especially in situations where competitors make changes to the other, less novel portions, or seek to knock-off unclaimed/covered independent parts/designs that you may have overlooked.
Design Patent Application Drafting and Prosecution
Design patents are given for new "ornamental" designs. In recent years the protection they provide has been significantly increased by several landmark rulings that greatly expanded their scope. Whenever applicable, it is highly recommended to procure Design Patent protection in addition to Utility patents. The most value in protecting a product both ways is when its unique form closely follows its unique function.
You may
want to review our overview on design patents before
exploring this form of patent protection. Bay Area IP drafts and
prosecutes design patents on your behalf. We have a very high success
rate of winning Design patents and preparing the application costs much less
than that for Utility patents. Prosecution of the Design patent follows
the same, or very similar, laws, rules, procedures, and, hence, cost as that
for Utility patents.
The patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new and nonobvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The design patent protects only the appearance of an article, but not its structural or functional features. The proceedings relating to granting of design patents are the same as those relating to other patents with a few differences. See current fee schedule for the filing fee for a design application. A design patent has a term of 15 years from grant, and no fees are necessary to maintain a design patent in force. If on examination it is determined that an applicant is entitled to a design patent under the law, a notice of allowance will be sent to the applicant or applicant's attorney, or agent, calling for the payment of an issue fee. The drawing of the design patent conforms to the same rules as other drawings, but no reference characters are allowed and the drawing should clearly depict the appearance, since the drawing defines the scope of patent protection.
The specification of a design application is short and ordinarily follows a set form. Only one claim is permitted, following a set form that refers to the drawing(s).
Design Patent Information
Here is a basic overview of Design Patents from the USPTO:
By way of background, ornamental designs that have only aesthetic, visual qualities are protected by Design Patents, and inventions that have functional usefulness that solve some kind of problem are protected by Utility Patents. It is common to protect the function or manufacture of a structure with a Utility Patent, and the appearance of the same structure with a Design Patent. Generally, design patents protect the same or obvious variations to the look of something. So, the functionality (i.e., utility) of the invention will not be relevant. However, the scope of protection should be thought of as the range of similarly shaped (e.g., styled) and ornamentally embellished items. The protection may be thought of more about what an artist would change to get a certain look, and not what an engineer would do to achieve a certain function.
Generally, if you believe you have a unique function that you want to protect then you should do a provisional/utility application, and if you believe you have a unique look that you want to protect you should do a design patent, if you want to protect both a novel function and look, then you would want to do both, budget permitting.
There is almost never a conflict between Design and Utility patents because design patents do not disclose functionality, only appearance, and are somewhat narrower in scope. When applicable, you can grab much broader protection by getting a Design and Utility patents. That is, in court, there are completely different sets of law that governs infringement of Design patents, so where the Utility patent might fail to win infringement, a Design patent could win by different legal means.
Design and Utility patents
are practically mutually exclusive of each other except when the claimed
function in the Utility can be completely understood by the drawing in the
Design patent. When your invention's functional novelties are very
much tied to the structural shape of the design, a Design patent is a perfect
complement to the Utility, and they are much cheaper and easier to get
awarded. Moreover, recently, their patent protection strength has been
greatly expanded in patent law. And they operate under completely
different infringement law, so where a Utility might fail on technicalities,
the Design patent could win, and vise-versa.
A design patent may include photos, but they are only permitted if they are the
only practical medium for illustrating a design. Generally, they are not
used or required. Drawings are the common approach. Color drawings
are possible upon petition/fee