Category: Industrial Designs

It’s test car time of year again for Summit County, Colorado.  Here are ten of the approximately sixty camouflaged cars swarming around the streets and highways and the mountains of Colorado this week.  They are testing next year’s car models to see how they perform in the thin air at an elevation of 9000 feet (2700 meters) or higher.

It’s not only that camouflage wrap is laid onto the cars.  There are also fake body panels and bumps and contours taped into place under the camouflage wrap.

This is all to protect the industrial designs — postponing for as long as possible the day when a competitor will get to see exactly what next year’s models look like.

Today is the day that USPTO is pulling the plug on the PDX system with respect to the Chinese patent office.  As a consequence, today is the day that, for the first time, a US design applicant can use the DAS system to obtain an electronic certified copy of a Chinese priority design application.

I blogged about this a few days ago, and you can read more about this development in that blog article.

As of today, for a US design filer, the DAS system makes it possible to retrieve an electronic certified copy of a priority application from the following Offices:

• China
• Spain
• India

Korea became a Depositing Office for designs on July 20, 2018 (blog article).  But this is no help for US design filers who wish to claim priority from a Korean design application.  Hopefully soon the USPTO will pull the plug on the PDX connection to the Korean intellectual property office, and then US design filers will be able to make use of DAS for Korean priority claims.

There was a development in the industrial design community last month that almost went unnoticed.  On July 20, 2018, the Korean Intellectual Property Office became a Depositing Office in the DAS system for designs.

This is unfortunately no help for US design filers who wish to claim priority from a Korean priority application, because as of right now, the USPTO and the KIPO are still connected in PDX.  And PDX trumps DAS.  Hopefully Real Soon Now the USPTO will pull the plug on the PDX connection to KIPO, and then US design filers will be able to use DAS to get electronic certified copies of Korean design applications.

The ID5 is the big five Offices for protection of industrial designs.  The Offices are the USPTO, the EUIPO (formerly known as OHIM), JPO (the Japanese patent office), KIPO (the Korean intellectual property office) and SIPO (the Chinese patent office).

Conspicuous by its absence from DAS is EUIPO.  I keep hearing that EUIPO will join DAS Real Soon Now.  I do hope that EUIPO will follow through with this.

USPTO is not, at the present time, a Depositing Office in DAS for design applications.  USPTO has promised that Real Soon Now it will become a Depositing Office for designs.  I do hope that USPTO will follow through with this.

JPO is not, at the present time, a Depositing Office in DAS for design applications.  I also hope that JPO will follow through soon with this.

There’s a big change that will happen four days from now for the US design applicant who claims priority from a Chinese design application.

Continue reading “September 1 and US design applications claiming priority from Chinese applications”

Recently a colleague asked whether a second Hague application (international design application) can claim priority from a first Hague application. This is a very interesting question. The answer is yes, it can, under certain circumstances, as I will explain. Continue reading “Can a Hague application claim priority from a Hague application?”