On Thursday January 24th, we
attended The Design Patent/Copyright Conundrum Roundtable Seminar organized by
the Copyright Committee of Boston Patent Law
Association (BPLA), where Keith
Toms and Erik Paul Belt
from McCarter & English presented on
the differences in protection afforded by design patents, trade dress, and
copyrights. Various topics were
discussed including overlap in protections (see chart below) and recent cases
such as Richardson
v. Stanley Works and Apple
v. Samsung.
The seminar was well
attended by the area’s intellectual properly practitioners, leaving no room at
the table. Presenters inspired lively
discussions among the participants on such topics as the scope of protection of
Apple design patents and role of design patents in emerging issues such as 3D
printing technologies. Presenters were
gracious enough to allow us to share some of the presentation slides with you. Of
particular interest is this comparison chart organizing the scope of protection
afforded by design patents, copyright and trade dress.
As one might expect, much of the
discussion centered around Apple v.
Samsung and the forthcoming appeal.
In particular, there was a great deal of discussion regarding Apple’s Design
Patent No. 604,305 for a “Graphical User Interface for a Display Screen or Portion
Thereof.” Based on the discussion, it
was clear that the design patent community is eagerly anticipating the Federal
Circuit’s discussion with regard to this particular patent.
We thoroughly enjoyed the
presentation and the discussion and would like to thank the presenters and
organizers for putting together such a relevant and engaging seminar.
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