[Swordmaker]

The US Patent Office invalidates Apple's Design D'677 Patent on the iPhone because of Apple's OWN prior art of the iPhone Design Patent? Say what? They claim that Apple's own design makes the design now "obvious"? As a design element, that is not so obvious, nor is it a functional part of the iPhone.

Image from the Patent as filed

As always in a Design Patent, dashed lines are NOT included in the design or patent and included only for reference. Only solid lines are part of the patent. Therefore the design being covered is the screen in black. . . no longer differentiated between the black bands at the top and bottom. This is different from the original iPhone where the screen showed a distinct gray field when not active. It looks as if Apple's designers wanted to cover the monolithic black look of the front of the Apple iPhone with this design patent. Prior designs allowed for slight screen differentiations between the bezels and the screen. — Swordmaker

[MeshugeMikey]

THERE ARE THOSE WHO’D LOVE for the PATENT to be a thing of The PAST...

[Swordmaker]

The US Patent Office issue a preliminary invalidation of Apple's Design Patent D'677 for the iPhone used in the Samsung patent infringement case. . . saying it's invalid based on Apple's OWN PRIOR ART of Apple's previous iPhones designed by the same invention team! The examiner says it's now "obvious!" — PING!

Apple's "obvious" iPhone Design Patent D'677
from 2008. Note that only solid lines are significant.
Ping!

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