Are you looking to protect the hard work you have put into your invention or product?
If so, it is essential to hire a patent lawyer in Brooklyn, NY. A patent lawyer in Brooklyn NY can help you with a design patent, which is a great way to protect the aesthetics of your invention or product. A design patent can help protect the surface decorations, color combinations, and shape of the final product.
At Tatonetti IP, we understand the intricate work that goes into creating a product or system. Design is a key factor in any inventor’s business plan, and patents are an important part of protecting their work from blatant copying or knock-offs. We strive to secure robust patents that protect your hard work from replication or imitation.
Furthermore, we can also help shield your designs from subtler attempts of replication and imitation, especially if the core of your product is its distinctive design that took so much time and resources to get right. Tatonetti IP helps protect not just the intellectual property of inventors and creators, but also their livelihood in the future.
Laws provide a 15-year term to approved design patents. Design patents are crucial for protecting a product’s or system’s look or exterior design. Utility patents, on the other hand, have a 20-year term. In addition, design patents do not require inventors/creators to pay additional fees such as maintenance fees after they’ve been granted.
Trademark law protects inventors and businesses from confusingly identical goods or services. Arbitrary and fanciful marks are eligible for trademark registration since they are considered intrinsically unique. Before the existence of property rights, trademark characteristics, similar to design patents, must be nonfunctional. The characteristics of a trademark or trade dress will be deemed functional if they are vital to the article’s purpose or if they impact the price or quality of the item.
Benefits Of Working With A Design Patent Attorney in Brooklyn
IP protection should be considered by inventors or business owners currently owning or holding product designs, or who may be exploring the possibility of launching new products to market. Be sure to speak with a Patent lawyer Brooklyn NY today.
When most people think about patents, they tend to see or think about utility patents. Utility patents are typically awarded for material composition, products, processes, and equipment. However, the design patent is a different category that may be enormously lucrative under certain conditions.
A utility patent includes a comprehensive technical description, illustrations (where applicable), and one or more claims. The claims of a utility patent specify the components of the invention and the scope of patent protection. In contrast, the design patent depends heavily on the drawings to convey what is covered.
The design patent has a single claim. Instead of naming structures or defining the design in words, this claim often refers to the drawings as the protected standard. While utility patents may be granted for unique, practical, and non-obvious discoveries, the design patent focuses on the decorative design of a commercial object rather than its usefulness.
The USPTO defines the design of an object as the thing’s aesthetic qualities or attributes.
Although a design patent may be acquired for a helpful product, it may only be secured if the decorative qualities predominate over the practical features. In the United States, a design cannot be protected by a design patent if it is predominantly practical.
Product design has a tremendous influence on consumer-product choice.
A product with a distinctive design has a significant market advantage over the competitors as it strongly binds the product with the branding and the central message the business wishes to convey to consumers.
Businesses invest large sums of money in product design research, development, and advertising. However, an individual or company’s investments in distinctive product design are better protected by IP laws.
A design patent provides more investment security. By incorporating different IP protections, inventors can indefinitely prolong intellectual property and investment protection.
For instance, modern mobile phones’ shape and color combinations are typically not crucial to the article’s function or usage. If the outside casing of the mobile phone were found to be a creative innovation, the inventor would be eligible for a design patent.
A patent lawyer in Brooklyn NY can explain to you how different forms or designs present in automobiles, bottles, computers, mobile devices, and even silverware and lighting features are all eligible for patent applications. A design patent grants the holder the exclusive right to prevent anyone from creating, utilizing, or producing the design for the patent’s term.
The goal of a design patent is to incentivize inventive artistic endeavors. Therefore, an inventor may obtain a design patent for any article with a unique, novel, or aesthetically pleasing traits.
Design patentability criteria closely match the more famous utility patent criteria. In a design patent, ornamentality substitutes a standard patent’s use or usefulness condition. The ornamentation protected by a design patent cannot serve as a functional component of the innovation. The feature is functional if it is integral to the article’s usage or purpose.
Design patents can even cover a new version of an old product. For example, even if MP3 players have existed for over a decade now, you can still obtain a design patent if you have a distinct innovation in your version of a portable MP3 player.
Understanding the Design Patent Application Process
The design patent application may include the product’s form, arrangement, and surface ornamentation. In contrast, surface ornamentation requires a well-defined design. The decoration may cover only a section of the item in issue, or the complete object.
A patent lawyer, in Brooklyn NY, handles design patent applications, submitting them to the USPTO for review and approval if they are eligible. 35 USC 171 protects an object’s visual and aesthetic features with a design patent. Therefore, there will be no utilitarian structural or functional characteristics covered by the patent. However, it is possible to get both design and utility patents for a single product if both apply. Thus, an applicant is not required to choose between the two.
Utility patents are often awarded more slowly than design patents. While it is common for the USPTO to evaluate a utility patent application within two years or more, design patent examination timetables are often quicker, with the initial assessment typically occurring within a year.
Some patents are issued within one year after application. As a result, filing a design patent may be advantageous if your product is about to be released to the public.
A competitor or counterfeiter may desire to sell a product that seems like your firm, leveraging the branding, customer service, and technology that distinguish your product in the marketplace. Unfortunately, shoppers may not make an effort to differentiate between legitimate and fake items.
