Steve Jobs's Patents

The NY Times has an interesting pictorial overview of 300+ patents credited to Steve Jobs.

What's Your Poison?

Actor Dan Ackroyd's latest venture into the wine/spirits market has run afoul of Ontario bureaucrats. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) has refused to sell Ackroyd's Crystal Head brand vodka at its retail stores because it comes in a skull-shaped bottle.

The beer, wine and spirits industry is highly competitive, so many companies try to obtain maximum IP protection for their products. This includes protecting the shape or design of containers. Akroyd's company has filed US trademark applications (see 77967530) for the shape of the container and has also successfully applied for design patent protection: US D589,360 S was issued on March 31, 2009.

The skull motiff has been the subject of several US design patents, and has its very own classification in the USPC, D9/626. The earliest patent in this subclass was issued in 1890 (D20,135) for the design of a bottle shaped like a casket with the word "poison" and a skull emblazoned on the front. In fact, many of the early patents in this subclass are for bottles for poison. Images associated with death or the supernatural are a little more hip today, and recently issued patents are clearly for consumer products.

Design Patent #600,000

Design patent no. 600,000 was issued this week to Goal Zero of Spanish Fork, Utah. The patent protects the design of a battery system.

Happy Independence Day!

A few patriotic patents for your enjoyment on the 4th of July. The first is a jack-in-the-box featuring a rather creepy-looking Uncle Sam (US978489); next are matching picture frames with Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam--a perfect gift for queen and king who have everything! (US1283100); the third is a bottle shaped like Uncle Sam holding what appears to be a rifle--for taking shots at squirrels and evil doers?! (USD29331); and, finally, two flags inspired by the design of the US flag. It's surprising how many patent flag designs there are based on Old Glory. See USPC D11/167 and D11/168.

Helvetica

Last night I watched a very interesting documentary by Gary Hustwit called Helvetica. It was a fascinating conversation with graphic designers about the font Helvetica, typography and graphic design. Helvetica was created in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas type foundry in Munchenstein, Switzerland and within a decade became the world's most successful and well-known font.

The story reminded me that the first U.S. design patent, issued in November 1842, was for a type font. Unfortunately, the surviving copy is a handwritten document that does not include drawings of the font. (See D1.)

The inventor (or designer) was George Bruce, a Scottish immigrant and owner of a type foundry in New York. Bruce was one of the most successful type designers in the 19th century. His inventions included numerous fonts and improvements to type-casting machines.

Since 1842 there have been thousands of design patents for fonts. Fonts are classified in the USPC under Class D18, Printing and Office Machinery, subclasses D18/24-D18/33. It's interesting to note that Bruce's first patented font is still being cited in recent design patents.

May the IP Force Be With You

According to press reports, George Lucas and his company Lucasfilm are suing Andrew Ainsworth, a London-based prop designer, for copyright infringement for selling replica Star Wars stormtrooper armor. Ainsworth, who produced costumes for the first Star Wars movie in 1976, is disputing the copyright. Lucas claims that he and Ralph McQuarrie, a designer who worked on all three films in the first trilogy, completed the stormtrooper design before turning it over to Ainsworth for production.

In the early 1980s, Lucas, McQuarrie and Joe Johnston patented several designs for toy action figures based on characters in the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the second and third Star Wars film. These include:

D264,109 - Bobba Fett
D265,332 - Snowtrooper
D265,754 - Yoda
D268,942 - Imperial probe droid
D277,215 - Ewok

Tupperware Patents

The U.S. economy may be sputtering, consumer confidence is tanking, and food and energy prices are at all-time highs. But there's one company that sees a silver lining in all this gloomy news. Tupperware, the 62-year old company famous for its plastic food storage products, knows that when times are bad, it's sales go up. People still have to eat, after all, and they need a safe way to store their leftovers.

Earl S. Tupper (1907-1983), the company's founder and namesake, had patented several small inventions (comb case, shoe heel) before he found success in plastic containers. On October 5, 1946 he filed four design patent applications for a sugar bowl (D156855), pitcher (D154348) and pitcher covers (D158155 and D156854), which were issued between 1949-1950. A year later, a paint can lid inspired him to design an air-tight container for food. In 1954, Tupper received his first patent for container specifically designed for food (2695645).

Tupperware has received thousands of patents (mostly design patents) on food storage, preparation and serving products. In 1969, Tupperware was sold to Rexall Drugs, which later became Dart Industries. All Tupperware patents since the early 1970s have been assigned to Dart. Both Tupperware and Dart are now based in Orlando, Florida.

Clothing Design Patents

<-- The "Frau Blucher" <-- The "Rosie the Riveter"

<-- The "Marian the Librarian"


















Here are a few clothing design patents from the mid 1940s. Not exactly stylish by today's standards, but hey, there was a war on.

As I reported a few days ago, clothing designers rec'd thousands of design patents in the 1930s and 1940s.

Fashion Designers Look to Copyright, Not Design Patents

An article in today's New York Times discusses the growing threat that high-end fashion designers face from low-cost imitations of their most popular clothing designs. Their industry trade group is lobbying Congress to extend copyright design to clothing. Copyright already protects fabric, textile and jewelry designs, and patterns for sewing, knitting, needlepoint, etc. In some cases, trademark and trade dress law will protect a unique clothing design or element such as the stitching on a pair of jeans.

The fashion industry seems to have forgotten that clothing is eligible for design patent protection. Perhaps copyright's longer term (the life of the author plus 70 years or 95 years for works made for hire) is simply more attractive than the 14-year term for design patents. Or perhaps copyright is more difficult to "design around" than design patents.

But there was a time in the mid-20th century when clothing designers loved design patents. In fact, approximately 15 percent of the design patents issued in the 1930s and 1940s were for apparel and haberdashery designs (Class D2 in the USPC). Many of these designs were for dresses, robes, pants and other garments typically sold in department stores and mom-and-pop clothing stores.

Curiously, clothing design patents took a nosedive on the catwalk in the 1950s and 60s, and bell-bottomed out in the 1970s. Only 2 percent of the design patents issued in the 1970s are in Class D2, which also includes footwear. They rebounded in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to the growing market for athletic shoes. Almost 50 percent of the D2 design patents issued since 1990 were assigned to Adidas, Nike and Reebok.

Why did the fashion industry turn its back on design patents? Was it a change in patent law? Unlikely, since a few clothing designs are still patented each year.

Clothing Design Patents, 1900-2007