5 ms·

I'm so relieved that this is the top comment. Design patents only protect the ornamental characteristics embodied in an article of manufacture. This NYT blogger

by law 14y ago

I'm so relieved that this is the top comment. Design patents only protect the ornamental characteristics embodied in an article of manufacture. This NYT blogger seems to conflate design patents and utility patents, but the distinction is that utility patents protect how an article of manufacture works, whereas a design patent protects how an article of manufacture appears. In fact, Apple could have filed an application for a utility patent on "page turning," which the USPTO would summarily reject on the basis of "page turning" being anticipated by technologies like...the book. At any rate, this is the kind of sensationalized blog spam that I'd expect to see on reddit, rather than HN. Flagged.

hexagonc 14y ago
But this is not just an ornamental artifact. What it attempts to do is simulate the actual way someone would turn a page in a large book, such as a dictionary, with lots of thin pages. I would argue that the technical way of implementing this would warrant a patent (utility) more so than the simple depiction of a thing that people naturally do with books. In no way is this design unique to Apple; there is already prior art from the way people turn pages in books. The choice to depict realistic page turning on an ebook reader is not artistically novel. From a video game perspective, this is like patenting the idea of showing a game world from an isometric point of view. This is a bad patent. Now, I would agree with you that the NY Times article does exaggerate the impact of this patent. Apple has not patented the page turn, instead they have patented a particular realistic way of showing turning pages. In theory, Amazon could implement a page turn style where someone grabs the top corner of the page instead of the bottom and get around this patent.

5 ms·

I'm so relieved that this is the top comment. Design patents only protect the ornamental characteristics embodied in an article of manufacture. This NYT blogger

by law 14y ago

hexagonc 14y ago
But this is not just an ornamental artifact. What it attempts to do is simulate the actual way someone would turn a page in a large book, such as a dictionary, with lots of thin pages. I would argue that the technical way of implementing this would warrant a patent (utility) more so than the simple depiction of a thing that people naturally do with books. In no way is this design unique to Apple; there is already prior art from the way people turn pages in books. The choice to depict realistic page turning on an ebook reader is not artistically novel. From a video game perspective, this is like patenting the idea of showing a game world from an isometric point of view. This is a bad patent. Now, I would agree with you that the NY Times article does exaggerate the impact of this patent. Apple has not patented the page turn, instead they have patented a particular realistic way of showing turning pages. In theory, Amazon could implement a page turn style where someone grabs the top corner of the page instead of the bottom and get around this patent.