People slide their phones into and out of bags and pockets. A sharp corner is really bad for that. A rounded corner only makes sense. Cars, tables, cutting boards, children's books, and all manner of other items have had rounded corners for decades to centuries for the very reason that you don't want sharp corners and edges on things you're handling a lot.
There's nothing novel here and in fact it should have been filed as a functional patent then swiftly declined as obvious and ordinary.
Hell, every flip phone I had had rounded corners. There's nothing novel about rounded corners in a cell phone. Or, a "regular" phone -- I recall rounded corners on any number of landline phones -- some cordless handsets even pocket-able.
There needs to be some career downside for such abusive legal maneuvering.
"Steve suddenly got more intense. "Rectangles with rounded corners are everywhere! Just look around this room!". And sure enough, there were lots of them, like the whiteboard and some of the desks and tables. Then he pointed out the window. "And look outside, there's even more, practically everywhere you look!". He even persuaded Bill to take a quick walk around the block with him, pointing out every rectangle with rounded corners that he could find."
The design patent in this case doesn't cover the corners of the device, it only covers the face of the device. The patented design of a design patent application are the solid lines---broken lines are used to denote additional context and are not part of the claimed design.
Should it matter? Rounded corners are obvious and ordinary. Does changing the diameter affect how useful it is? If you patent 0.505" diameter corners am I allowed to patent 0.515" if I can show it increases $METRIC?
If I sound argumentative it's not intentional, I know sometimes multiple questions in a row like that can be taken the wrong way.
It matters in as much as one of the functions of a design patent is to prevent confusion in the market. Like trademarks, design patents are intended to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in the free market so consumers can more easily determine the providence of goods and services.
The less providence can be quickly, reliably, and consistently determined by consumers, the weaker will be feedback mechanisms in the market. When knock-offs flood the market, the original company will have less incentive to manufacture products with better quality, longevity, or whatever characteristic is desirable in the market. That's because they capture fewer of the dollars consumers fork over for those differences.
It follows that there's nothing per se illogical about making such fine distinctions as fractions of an inch. What matters is if the distinction serves the purpose of make the product distinguishable in the market to the degree that optimizes the market function of design patents.
The patents in question seem to consist of essentially just pictures. Can anyone more familiar with design patents clarify whether there are more specifics beyond what Google Patents and the USPTO website show, or if this is all there is to it?
To a first approximation, design patents confer the right to stop others from making/using/selling things that look too much like what is in the picture of the patent and not enough like what existed before the patent. How it functions does not matter-just how it looks.
Design patents do not last as long as utility patents, typically only 14 years, rather than 20.
Design patents are generally much easier to design around than utility patents -- you could use a sufficiently different corner radius, put a curve in one side, add a hood ornament, etc.
Most notably, and key in this case, the measure of damages is different: Disgorgement of profits for a design patent, versus a reasonable royalty for a utility patents.
The issue in this case was profits on what--the whole phone, or just the component of the phone to which the design is applied. A reasonable reading of the statute suggested the former.
Google Patents is giving you the whole thing. Most design patents are just a picture and some boilerplate text. And there's little or no review before issuance. If you can draw, you can get one.
They are just pictures, but they are very specific pictures. The USPTO's Design Patent Application Guide (https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/patent-basics/...) might be of interest. Of specific interest is that broken lines are not considered part of the patent claim.
I'm not a patent lawyer, but I have dealt with patents. The important part is the claims, because that lists what it is they are actually patenting. But since their only claim is about the design the only real relevant information is those pictures and the short descriptions of them.
Note that I'm not attempting to argue over where that should be a valid patent or not, just why it is so bare. If there were more specifics, you'd see them on that page.
Yes, that's my point. There's not much specifics because there's not much other details that need to be provided to explain the claims. IE. The claim basically just says "look at the pictures".
Would a particular diameter lead to a usable patent?
The patent holder would have a hard time defending their patent if it relied on some arbitrary level of precision. Either it is useless because there is no diameter and thus too vague or it specifies a diameter and is useless to the holder.
A meaningful patent on corner shape would have some reason for the shape. Perhaps the ornamentation related to the company's logos or style in some way or they deduced that something special about the size and shape of some special rounded corner has some better function... Perhaps the ideal corner shape for insertion into skinny jeans without sacrificing screen size (could be a minimum level of fu).
The position of the home button, the speaker, the diameter of the corners, the use of a particular bezel, these were all considerations in the design of the iconic iPhone.
Prior to that style phones came in a dizzying multitude of shapes, sizes, and styles. If there was a consideration for fitting into jeans surely Motorola or Nokia or Palm or RIM would have taken it into consideration.
The Blackberry device is another iconic design. It had rounded corners, but it also had other distinctive design features that made it obviously not an iPhone, such as the somewhat unique bottom curve on the device.
Samsung went out of their way to copy. I can't believe people are defending Samsung here. It's an insult to actual innovators.
Design patents are drawings of ornamental aspects of an item. No one specifies technical details. A jury is responsible for determining if the drawings match based on their layman's judgement.
It's not an engineering process nor is it intended to be one. In particular, the results are not predictable or reliable.
There's nothing novel here and in fact it should have been filed as a functional patent then swiftly declined as obvious and ordinary.