Watch Your Language: Federal Circuit Rules that Words—Not Just Drawings—Determine the Scope of a Design Patent
Curver Luxembourg, SARL v. Home Expressions Inc., Appeal No. 2018-2214 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 12, 2019)
Curver Luxembourg, SARL is the owner of U.S. Design Patent No. D677,946, titled “Pattern for a Chair.” The design patent, which features an overlapping “Y” design, claims an “ornamental design for a pattern for a chair.” The title of the design patent, as originally applied for, was “Furniture Part.” However, the application was initially denied for failure to adequately designate the article to which the patent would apply. The Patent Office granted the design patent only after Curver altered the language from “Furniture Part” to “Pattern for a Chair” to satisfy the single article requirement. The design patent does not contain any images or drawings of the design as applied to a chair. Rather, the design patent’s figures illustrate the design pattern disembodied from any article of manufacture.
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