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Design Patent Law's Identity Crisis

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Design Patent Law's Identity Crisis MENELL & CORRENT - DESIGN PATENT IDENTITY CRISIS - BTLJ EDIT - PSM 12-30 12/30/2020 7:58 AM DESIGN PATENT LAW’S IDENTITY CRISIS † †† Peter S. Menell & Ella Corren ABSTRACT Since its emergence during the industrial revolution nearly two centuries ago, U.S. design patent law has suffered from a profound identity crisis. U.S. copyright law did not yet extend to the shape or ornamentation of three-dimensional works. The drafters of the first U.S. design protection regime modeled the law on the British copyright regime for surface ornamentation and sculptural features of three-dimensional articles but confusingly labeled the regime “design patent.” Courts and the Patent Office struggled to interpret protection for “useful” designs against the backdrop of a utility patent regime focused on technological inventions. Further complicating design patent’s role, manufacturers used design patents as a nascent form of trademark protection until federal trademark protection emerged. And in 1870, Congress expanded copyright law to protect sculptural works. In 1902, after a persistent split in the courts and the Patent Office over design patent eligibility for functional designs, Congress clarified that design patents were limited to “ornamental” attributes of articles of manufacture and did not extend to functional attributes. Regional federal circuit courts faithfully limited the design patent regime’s reach, but the tests that they enunciated were cautious and incomplete. In 1982, appellate jurisdiction over design patents shifted to the newly established U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Later that decade, the Federal Circuit expanded the scope of design patent protection, paving the way for design patent law protection for minimalist and functional features of articles of manufacture. This shift helped to fuel the “smartphone wars” of the past decade. Apple’s design patent claims to rounded rectangles proved to be the most valuable (and profitable) weapon in its seven-year battle with Samsung. This article traces the origins of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine and shows how several early cases using the “dictated solely by utilitarian considerations” phrasing to deny design patent protection were misinterpreted to be the standard for determining whether a design was eligible for design patent protection. These decisions merely explained that designs “dictated solely by utilitarian considerations” were clearly outside of design patent eligibility. They did not mean that designs that only partially affected functionality qualified for design patents. Unfortunately, inattentive and protectionist judicial opinions caused the standard to drift far from these holdings and into direct conflict with the clear language and intent of the 1902 design patent amendments and fundamental, overarching intellectual property law principles reflected in the Supreme Court’s seminal Baker v. Selden decision. This article aims to correct this fundamental misinterpretation of intellectual property law. Part II tells the remarkable story of how the effort to transplant England’s design copyright regime to the United States spawned a confusingly labeled “design patent” regime and examines the confusion wrought by this mislabeled law during the mid to late 19th century. It also reveals a period in which design patent law served as a proto-federal trademark DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/Z38XS5JH75 © 2021 Peter S. Menell & Ella Corren. † Koret Professor of Law; Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology; Faculty Director, Berkeley Judicial Institute; University of California at Berkeley School of Law. †† University of California at Berkeley School of Law, J.S.D. Candidate. MENELL & CORRENT - DESIGN PATENT IDENTITY CRISIS - BTLJ EDIT - PSM 12-30 12/30/2020 7:58 AM 102 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 36:ppp registration system before Congress established federal trademark protection in the late 19th century. Remnants of that dalliance still confusingly resonate in the design patent system today. Part III explores the 1902 amendments, which unequivocally limited design patents to the ornamental features of articles of manufacture and made clear that they did not extend design patent protection to functional elements. Part IV traces the emergence and distortion of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine. The early decisions clearly grasped the need to exclude functionality from design patents. Unfortunately, later cases misapplied some of the language of those cases, resulting in standards that contradict the 1902 (and 1952) Acts as well as the logic reflected in Baker v. Selden and other Supreme Court cases dealing with the structure of the intellectual property system. Part V traces the Federal Circuit’s tilting of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine toward overbroad protection of functionality within the design patent regime. Part VI explores the forces that have led the design patent regime astray. Part VII proposes ways of rectifying design patent law’s wayward drift to restore fidelity to the statutory language and the overarching logic of the intellectual property system. MENELL & CORRENT - DESIGN PATENT IDENTITY CRISIS - BTLJ EDIT - PSM 12-30 12/30/2020 7:58 AM 2021] DESIGN PATENT LAW’S IDENTITY CRISIS 103 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 105 II. ORIGINS OF THE DESIGN PATENT LAW’S IDENTITY CRISIS ................................................................................................. 108 A. SWITCHED AT BIRTH: DESIGN PATENT’S MISBEGOTTEN COPYRIGHT ORIGIN ............................................................................................... 108 B. DESIGN PATENTS AS PROTO-FEDERAL TRADEMARKS ....................... 112 C. DESIGN/UTILITY PATENT CONFUSION ................................................. 114 D. SUPREME COURT CONFUSION .................................................................. 122 III. THE 1902 DESIGN PATENT ACT: LEGISLATIVE RECOGNITION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW’S FUNCTIONALITY CHANNELING PRINCIPLE.......................... 124 IV. JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE 1902 ACT’S CHANNELING PRINCIPLE: WAYWARD DRIFT BACK INTO CONFUSION ...................................................................................... 129 A. THE ORNAMENTALITY STANDARD ......................................................... 133 B. ORIGINS OF THE “DICTATED BY” “UTILITARIAN,” “MECHANICAL,” OR “FUNCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS” PHRASEOLOGY ........... 141 C. THE CCPA’S ADOPTION OF A “DICTATED SOLELY BY” STANDARD......................................................................................... 153 D. OTHER FORMULATIONS ............................................................................ 156 1. “Primarily Ornamental” ....................................................................... 156 2. “Primarily Functional” ......................................................................... 158 3. “Availability of Alternative Designs” .................................................... 164 V. THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT’S FUNCTIONALITY JURISPRUDENCE: EXPANDING DESIGN PATENT ELIGIBILITY ..................................................................................... 166 A. A CAUTIOUS BEGINNING .......................................................................... 169 B. EXPANDING ELIGIBILITY THROUGH THE “AVAILABILITY OF ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS” TEST AND VIEWING DESIGNS AS A WHOLE ............................................................................................... 173 C. PARTIAL REBALANCING THROUGH INFRINGEMENT FILTRATION ANALYSIS ........................................................................................... 190 D. THE APPLE V. SAMSUNG FUNCTIONALITY SHOWDOWN: DESIGN PATENTS RUN AMOK ...................................................................... 199 1. The 2011 District Court Preliminary Injunction Decision ..................... 199 a) The Smartphone Design Patents ........................................ 200 MENELL & CORRENT - DESIGN PATENT IDENTITY CRISIS - BTLJ EDIT - PSM 12-30 12/30/2020 7:58 AM 104 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 36:ppp b) The Tablet Design Patent .................................................... 203 2. The 2012 Federal Circuit Appeal of the Preliminary Injunction Decisions and Remand .......................................................................................... 205 3. The 2012 Trial .................................................................................... 206 4. Post-Trial Motions ................................................................................ 211 5. The 2015 Federal Circuit Appeal ........................................................ 214 6. The Supreme Court’s Missed Opportunity ............................................. 216 7. The 2017 Remand Trial: Samsung’s Pyrrhic Victory ........................... 218 8. Denouement .......................................................................................... 219 E. THE POST-APPLE TRAJECTORY: FURTHER EROSION OF THE ORNAMENTALITY/NON-FUNCTIONALITY LIMITATION ......... 224 F. THE CURRENT STATE OF THE DESIGN PATENT ORNAMENTALITY/NON-FUNCTIONALITY DOCTRINE: A WAYWARD, INCOHERENT FRAMEWORK..................................... 227 VI. THE ROLE OF ADVOCATES AND THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT IN DESIGN PATENT LAW’S WAYWARD COURSE ........................... 229 A. DESIGN PROTECTION ADVOCACY .......................................................... 229 B. THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT
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