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Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, October 17 2012 @ 11:09 AM EDT |
The article and the earlier ruling are about design patents and the law is quite
clear that the overall appearance is at issue and that functional elements limit
the scope for infringement.
The Apple argument is about trade dress which, ISTR. can include elements
protected by design patent. Is the Apple objection actually misdirection? How is
trade dress infringement limited by functionality?
Was the inclusion of functional elements in that Mexican restaurant a limiting
factor to the trade dress infringement? Did Apple try to obscure, from the jury,
the fact that design patent infringement and trade dress infringement are
decided differently?
Would the fact that both restaurants had the functional elements of an entrance
door, a window facing the street and a sales counter detract from the trade
dress infringement issue? Did it all boil down to non-functional decoration
elements such as colour scheme and ethnic decorations?
Can a company have many different trade dresses depending upon the product
range? Apple Powerbooks don't look a lot like iPhones. If they make the argument
that the difference in overall appearance is because of the difference between
the functions of product ranges, well...
Apple need a foot-bandage!
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 17 2012 @ 02:26 PM EDT |
Apple looking out for their appeal
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 18 2012 @ 06:08 PM EDT |
That seems to only be talking about trade dress, which isn't the issue in the
article.
Thanks for finding Samsung's filing, though.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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