Earlier today Samsung filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to consider the following two questions relating to design patents:
"1. Where a design patent includes unprotected non-ornamental features, should a district court be required to limit that patent to its protected ornamental scope?
"2. Where a design patent is applied to only a component of a product, should an award of infringer’s profits be limited to those profits attributable to the component?"
The second question relates to an issue I have blogged about several times, most recently here, here, and here. Here is a link to the cert. petition, which I haven't yet had a chance to review carefully myself. I'm hoping the Supreme Court will seriously consider limiting the reach of section 289, which under the Federal Circuit's interpretation permits the owner of a design patent to recover all of the profits earned from the sale of an infringing product, even where the design makes up only a small part of the value of that product.
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