USPTO Design Claim Guidance Clarifies Digital Image Patentability

Design patents in the United States date all the way back to 1842, nearly 52 years after the first utility patent laws were passed in the Patent Act of 1790. The first U.S. design patent issued to George Bruce in 1842 and claimed a new printing typeface. Interestingly, the design patent was utterly devoid of art or images and featured only a written description of Mr. Bruce's new typeface (for "Letters with Points, called in the printed impressions, New Double Small Pica Script, Two-line Long Primer Ornamented No. 3, Two-line Nonpareil Ornamented, and Long Primer Ornamented"). Even though this was 55 years before the first cathode ray tube display was publicly presented, and more than a century before the earliest LCD and LED technologies of modern display screens, it has served as a precedent that typefaces and other graphic displays are proper design patent subject matter. Design patents have enjoyed increasing popularity, jumping from only 12 other design patents