Name: EFF to Patent Office: No New Design Patents
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EFF to Patent Office: No New Design Patents

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Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItDesign is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent and copyright protection exist instead. As , we don’t need design patents because they restrict far more creativity, innovation, and economic activity than they promote. Unfortunately, the Patent Office is preparing to grant even more.Design patents provide exclusive rights to ornamental product features that are not useful enough to patent or creative enough for copyright. As before, we don’t need design patents, as they give far too much power to those who give so little to the public. Unfortunately, the Patent Office wants to grant more design patents to those who contribute even less.To do that, the Patent Office is that would open the floodgates to unprecedented and unnecessary types of design patents on computer-generated imagery (CGI). Although the standards for CGI design patents are way too low already, the Patent Office wants to make them even lower by allowing patented designs on non-physical products, like websites, software applications, and holographic projections.We have never allowed patents on designs untethered to physical products, and should not do so now. Design patent owners have the power to stop anyone else in this country from making, using, or selling what their patent covers. If companies can get patents on designs for non-physical products, like website banners, they will have the right to sue anyone whose website uses the same or similar features to demand payment or force them to stop. Given the exorbitant cost of litigation, companies with the resources to amass design patents will have massive power over what the web looks like for the rest of us.&nbsp;We should be especially cautious of expanding corporate power over computer graphics during a global pandemic when face-to-face communication is a public health risk. The last thing we need are more design patents restricting people’s ability to compete, create, and freely express themselves online. That is why EFF submitted urging the Patent Office not to take this unprecedented and perilous approach.Extending design patent protection to digital images means unnecessarily extending protection to content that already gets ample protection under copyright and trademark law. Letting design patents intrude further into the realm of graphic design creates uniquely dangerous risks. When copyright applies, so do protections for fair uses under the First Amendment. But there are no such protections for the use of patented designs. That makes the extension of design patent protection a threat not only to technological innovation and competition, but also to creativity and free expression.Despite these dangers, the Patent Office is proposing rules that will ensure we see more design patents and more patent litigation. The Office wants to change how it applies the part of the Patent Act which makes an “ornamental design for an article of manufacture” eligible for protection by effectively discarding the “article of manufacture” requirement altogether. For example, the Patent Office Singapore’s decision to eliminate a requirement that “a design must be applied to a physical article in order to be protected,” thus allowing patents on graphical user interface (GUI) designs applied to a “non-physical product.” But in the U.S., patents on designs for non-physical products have never been allowed.Nor should they: granting new and unprecedented design rights would wreak havoc on the U.S. economy when it is already struggling to recover from the economic depression caused by the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever, people depend on computer technology and connectivity to work, learn, communicate with each other, and get essential products and services—from groceries to health care. We should not impose any additional restrictions on people’s ability to create, use, and communicate digital content.To that end, Singapore may not be the best example to draw from&nbsp;— after all,&nbsp; its law also includes on designs that do not align with public order or morals. If other countries are to serve as models, it would be better to&nbsp;look to those that better align values of free expression and individual choice in their design regulations. One such model is Germany, where the explicitly says a “computer program is not considered to be a product.”As we’ve before, former Director of the Patent Office Andrei Iancu worked overtime during his tenure to tilt the scales in favor of patent owners and against technologists, start-ups, and end-users. Although his from the office is a positive sign, it will take a lot of time and work to rebuild from the damage he inflicted. If this proposal is adopted, however, the damage will be more pervasive and difficult to fix.We call on the Patent Office to reconsider—and abandon—this effort to expand design patent protection. Instead of lowering patentability standards, we should be empowering examiners to reject deficient design patent applications under existing law. Granting more and worse design patents will only encourage extortionate patent litigation and deter the innovation and economic activity the patent system is supposed to promote.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Share ItA recently introduced patent bill would authorize patents on abstract ideas just for including computer jargon, and would even legalize the patenting of human genes. EFF wants you to take action against this bill.Finding people near you with shared interests, and talking to them, has a very long history in human culture. We’re social animals. We need to find other people close to us to work together with, play games with, and build relationships and families with. Modern online social networks are built...EFF and the the are seeking to unseal a host of court records documenting a patent dispute between Google and Uniloc, a prolific patent litigant.Secrecy pervades the entire record in Uniloc v. Google. When Google filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the parties...The joy of tinkering, making, and sharing is part of the human condition. In modern times, this creative freedom too often is stifled by secrecy as a means of monetization - from non-compete laws to quashing people’s right to repair the products they’ve already paid for.Adam Savage—the maker extraordinaire best...At EFF, we’ve always stood up for the freedom to tinker and innovate. Unfortunately, our patent system doesn’t promote those freedoms. In some areas, like software, it’s causing much more harm than good. And the system is rife with patent trolls: companies that are focused on licensing and litigating patents,...WASHINGTON, D.C.— On Monday, December 6, at 10 am ET, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), standing up for public access to courts and transparency in patent litigation, will urge a panel of judges to unseal documents that a notorious patent troll is trying to hide. At a federal appeals court...The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants more than 300,000 patents each year. Some of those patent grants represent genuine new inventions, but many of them don’t. On average, patent examiners have to spend on each application. That’s not enough time to get it right....Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, we explore creative solutions to some of today’s biggest tech challenges. Listen to EFF's podcast, How to Fix the Internet, today.Even people who get sued over patents often can’t figure out who is demanding money from them. We’re glad to see the issue of patent transparency come back to Congress, in the form of a recently introduced bill called the “Pride in Patent Ownership” Act. However, because the bill lacks...Led by a group of senators that spent much of 2019 , the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has agreed to study the “current state of patent jurisprudence.” The make it clear that its proposers...Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItDesign is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent and copyright protection exist instead. As , we don’t need design patents because they restrict far more creativity, innovation, and economic activity than they promote. Unfortunately, the Patent Office is preparing to grant even more.Design patents provide exclusive...

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EFF to Patent Office: No New Design Patents

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