Trade Dress Updates: “Beauty” does not cut it
By Richard Stobbe
A recent decision of the US Federal Court (see: Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. May 18, 2015) reviewed the jury decision in Apple’s famous infringement lawsuit against Samsung. You may recall that Apple’s 2011 lawsuit alleged that Samsung infringed Apple’s utility patent rights, design patents, and trade dress rights.
See our previous posts here Pinch and Zoom: Apple vs. Samsung and here Apple and Samsung: The Design Patent Wars Continue.
In the latest decision, the Federal Court left the design and utility patent verdicts untouched, but knocked down the finding of trade dress infringement, on the basis that trade dress cannot protect functional elements of the design.
The court observed that “Apple emphasizes a single aspect of its design, beauty, to imply the lack of other advantages. But the evidence showed that the iPhone’s design pursued more than just beauty.” In its conclusion, the court noted: “Apple has failed to show that there was substantial evidence in the record to support a jury finding in favor of non-functionality for the unregistered trade dress … Apple fails to rebut the evidence that the elements in the unregistered trade dress serve the functional purpose of improving usability. Rather, Apple focuses on the ‘beauty’ of its design, even though Apple pursued both ‘beauty’ and functionality in the design of the iPhone.” Accordingly, the court reversed the jury’s verdicts on the unregistered and registered trade dress claims.
Watch for our upcoming updates on Canadian industrial design law.
Calgary – 07:00 MDT
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