Don’t Make an Unintended Claim in a Design Patent Drawing

Hey ,

Following a drawing convention in the wrong way can result in your design patent being misinterpreted by the courts – greatly reducing the value of your patent because it won’t be protecting what you thought it was protecting.

simplehuman, LLC, learned this lesson the hard way in a recent court battle with iTouchless Housewares and Products, Inc.

simplehuman sued iTouchless for patent infringement, claiming that iTouchless’s Open Top Trash Can, pictured below at left, infringed its US Patent D644,807. Figure 1 from the patent is pictured at right.

To a casual observer, the pictured trashcan certainly looks very similar to the figure in the patent. So what was the problem?

iTouchless argued that the patent included seam lines, which are missing in their product, making it substantially different than what was in the patent. simplehuman said those lines aren’t seam lines, they are simply unclaimed

contour lines, intended to show the rounded shape of the trash can. The below illustration points out the lines in question.

You can read complete article here

Thanks

Aravind

[email protected]