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Articles by Daniel Gajewski
The USPTO's New GUI Design Patent Guidance: Taking GUI Designs Beyond the Display Screen | JD Supra
Introduction Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) - the digital displays people interact with daily - are commonplace in today's world. But they are becoming increasingly detached from the traditional smartphone, tablet, and computer screens most people are used to. Many modern products present GUIs through augmented reality, virtual reality, or projected interfaces.
Designing Digital Experiences: An Introduction to GUIs | JD Supra
Consider the ease of making a phone call on a smartphone, ordering from your favorite pizza place's app, or playing the latest mobile game. You seamlessly tap, type, and swipe through a familiar set of screens and icons to make the call, place the order, or win big. This process becomes automatic. You might have a similar experience setting a navigation destination on the touch screen of your car. Or even choosing the right spin cycle on your washing machine.
2025 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends | 5th Edition | JD Supra
January 30, 2026 Ivy Clarice Estoesta, Daniel Gajewski, Deirdre Wells Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. + Follow x Following x Following - Unfollow Contact To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: In 2025, design patent law continued to evolve across institutions, jurisdictions, and borders.
IP Hot Topic: Is This Clear Enough? A Caution Against Claiming Transparency but Excluding Translucency From a Design Patent’s Scope | JD Supra
A U.S. design patent protects how something looks, as opposed to how it works. An applicant conveys that look primarily using drawings. Typically they use line drawings, so that the scope of protection is focused on the shape and configuration of the design, rather than surface appearances or textures that might be evident in photographs or digital images. But surface ornamentation like color, transparency, or opacity can be claimed.
Design Patent Quick Facts | JD Supra
November 14, 2025 Tracy-Gene Durkin, Ivy Clarice Estoesta, Daniel Gajewski, Deirdre Wells Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. + Follow x Following x Following - Unfollow Contact To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: Design Patents: Are useful to protect the design of nearly every type of product from smartphones to the retail stores that sell them; from pharmaceuticals to medical devices; and from running shoes to construction equipment Can be used to protect an...
Growth, Harmonization In Focus As Hague System Turns 100
ADVERTISEMENT Don't want ads? Subscribe or login now. By Daniel Gajewski and Rebekah Holtz ( November 5, 2025, 7:08 PM EST) -- The World Intellectual Property Organization's international design protection regime — known as the Hague System — turns 100 this year.... A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence.
Growth, Harmonization In Focus As Hague System Turns 100
By Daniel Gajewski and Rebekah Holtz ( November 5, 2025, 7:08 PM EST) -- The World Intellectual Property Organization's international design protection regime - known as the Hague System - turns 100 this year.... Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions.
Design Patent Reissue Applications | JD Supra
Law Clerk Sam Finkel contributed to this article. Reissue applications are often filed to pursue claim scope different from the original patent. For utility applications, this may mean revising or adding claims. But what about design patents? Design patents have only a single claim, and its scope is defined by the drawings. So, a reissue application for a design patent will often involve drawing amendments, and some other important differences in process compared to utility reissue applications.
Reissue, Reexamination, and Supplemental Examination Strategies and Insights – September 2025 | JD Supra
In the mid-2000s, the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) determined that reexaminations would be more consistent and legally correct if performed by a centralized set of experienced and specially trained Examiners. As a result, the USPTO formed the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) and staffed it with 15 year+ Examiners and legal experts. Later, after the loss of Inter Partes Reexamination in 2012, the USPTO added all newly filed reissue applications to the CRU Examiner’s regime.
2024 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends - Global Shifts in Design Law and Policy | JD Supra
2024 was a year of both big leaps and incremental advances in design law and practice globally. Years-long efforts came to fruition in the European Union and internationally with the Design Law Treaty, adopting significant advances and heralding greater global harmonization. China, Ukraine, and Canada all took steps forward by improving partial design examination, adopting partial design, and extending protection to buildings, respectively. But not every development was a step forward.
2024 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends | JD Supra
As we predicted in our 2023 report, 2024 was a banner year for design rights in the U.S. and elsewhere. In last year’s report, we noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) agreed to consider en banc whether the long-standing design patent obviousness test required modification. As you will see in this year’s report, the court did not modify it— instead, it threw more than 30 years of design jurisprudence out the window and adopted a new (but old) test.
IP Hot Topic: USPTO Establishes New Surcharge for Late-Stage Continuation Applications | JD Supra
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a final rule on November 20, 2024, that establishes a new surcharge for continuation applications filed well after their earliest benefit dates (EBDs). Beginning January 19, 2025, undiscounted entities can expect to pay, at least, a one-time $2,700 fee for continuation applications filed six or more years after their EBDs. This fee is in addition to the regular filing and examination fees (which are also increased).
Early District Court Litigation Following LKQ: Not a New Standard After All? | JD Supra
Summer Associate Michael Nathanson also contributed to this article. In May, the Federal Circuit eliminated the long-standing test for design patent obviousness. In its place, the Federal Circuit emphasized a flexible approach to the design patent obviousness analysis, grounded in the Graham factors.1 This is a big change in design patent law. So how is LKQ impacting ongoing cases so far? Not much, as it turns out.
Unanswered Questions After Federal Circuit Overrules 40 Years of Precedent Defining Design Patent Obviousness | JD Supra
Summer Associate Michael Nathanson also contributed to this article.
Fed. Circ. Scrapping Design Patent Tests Creates Uncertainty
By Tracy-Gene Durkin, Deirdre Wells and Daniel Gajewski (May 29, 2024, 1:35 PM EDT) -- On May 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, overruled more than 40 years of precedent defining the design patent obviousness standard.[1]... Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence.
2023 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends: Global Design Law and Policy: Gains and Setbacks in Protecting Digital and Virtual Designs | JD Supra
The outlines of global design protection change regularly, with every year bringing significant updates in at least some major jurisdictions. In general the changes bend toward greater alignment and the emergence of international norms. 2023 saw the near-completion of global adoption of partial design practice (China and Brazil are now there, Australia nearly so).
2023 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends | JD Supra
Not surprisingly, 2023 was another notable year for design rights around the globe. However, nowhere more than the U.S. did we see court decisions that will, in the case of one, and could in the case of another, have significant impact on design patent jurisprudence. In particular, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decided two cases of note.
[Webinar] 2023 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis and Trends - January 30th, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST | JD Supra
January 19, 2024 January 30th, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST Tracy-Gene Durkin, Ivy Clarice Estoesta, Daniel Gajewski, Deirdre Wells Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. + Follow x Following x Following - Unfollow Contact To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: January 30th, 2024 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EST Directors Tracy-Gene G. Durkin, Deirdre M. Wells, Daniel A.
2022 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis and Trends: International Design Law: Global Law and Policy | JD Supra
Design protection continues to be a priority for governments around the world. Global design protection is gradually becoming more modern and harmonized. Building on earlier developments, China made progress to implement examination of partial designs. Australia implemented a grace period for designs. And countries like Chile, the United Arab Emirates, and India simplified their design regimes.
2022 Design Patents Year in Review Analysis & Trends | JD Supra
Last year, in our inaugural issue of “The Year in Review,” we reported that since the landmark jury verdict in the IP litigation between Apple and Samsung in 2012, which awarded more than $1B to Apple for infringement of several design patents, interest in design patents grew exponentially. That trend has continued in 2022. And as the number of design applications filed around the world has continued to grow, so has design patent enforcement and litigation.
[Webinar] 2022 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis and Trends - February 15th, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST | JD Supra
Following the successful release of the firm's inaugural year-in-review report last year, we will again be hosting a webinar featuring the highlights of our 2023 report. Webinar speakers will provide an overview and analysis of particularly significant design patent updates and trends.
[Webinar] Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Design Patents But Were Afraid to Ask - September 28th, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EDT | JD Supra
Directors Tracy-Gene G. Durkin, Deirdre M. Wells, Daniel A. Gajewski and Ivy Clarice Estoesta will present the webinar titled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Design Patents But Were Afraid to Ask" on Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 1:00 p.m. ET. This complimentary webinar is hosted by Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox. The firm is actively applying for CLE credit for this webinar.
New USPTO Director Quickly Focuses on Much Needed Protection of Virtual Designs
“PHVAR designs are simply a new form of graphical user interface (GUI), just like screen-based GUI designs. A design for an interface is not a design per se, nor is it severed from an article of manufacture, the computer system that creates it.” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) new director wasted no time getting down to business in terms of protecting design innovation in the United States.
2021 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis and Trends: International Design Law Continues to Evolve | JD Supra
Like 2020 before it, 2021 has been a year of change for global design protection. Countries like Korea continue to update their rules to deal with the realities of modern, virtual design. China enacted a big modernization to its design laws, bringing them more in line with international norms. Australia is beginning to implement changes based on a long-running review of its design laws.
2021 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis and Trends | JD Supra
This year, we will mark the 10-year anniversary of the first jury verdict in the landmark IP litigation between Apple and Samsung, which resulted in the jury awarding more than $1B to Apple. More than $500M of that award was attributed to a finding that Samsung infringed three of Apple’s design patents for the iPhone® smartphone. Since that time, interest in design patent protection has continued to grow by all measures.
Design Patents Prove Successful On Enforcement, Defense
Law360 (May 4, 2020, 12:36 PM EDT) -- Design patents are an increasingly valued way of protecting the appearance of products, from graphical user interfaces to automotive parts, as well as to fend off would-be competitors and those who are likely to copy or knock off. But how do design patents stack up in the realm of enforcement? By numerous indicators, design patents appear to be substantially outperforming their utility counterparts.
Utility Model Examination in China is Quietly Changing
By Daniel Gajewski July 28, 2019 “Starting in 2017, the China National Intellectual Property Administration began giving utility model applications increased scrutiny during the formal examination stage. This ramped up in 2018, and now CNIPA is regularly issuing rejections.” In recognition of China’s increasing importance in the global IP landscape, patent applications in China by U.S.-based applicants have steadily increased in recent years.
Bedding company in store expansion
One of the most important things for a retailer to protect from copying is its retail environment, its familiarity. The thing that makes customers feel they’re in an Apple store, a Burberry store, a Best Buy, or a Home Depot — even if there was no sign on the door. A retailer’s unique style and familiarity can build comfort and trust with its customers. At least, until the competition copies this style, and it no longer feels unique.
Dental concept expanding its retail format
One of the most important things for a retailer to protect from copying is its retail environment, its familiarity. The thing that makes customers feel they’re in an Apple store, a Burberry store, a Best Buy, or a Home Depot — even if there was no sign on the door. A retailer’s unique style and familiarity can build comfort and trust with its customers. At least, until the competition copies this style, and it no longer feels unique.
Don’t Give Away the Store: Protecting retail with design patents
One of the most important things for a retailer to protect from copying is its retail environment, its familiarity. The thing that makes customers feel they’re in an Apple store, a Burberry store, a Best Buy, or a Home Depot — even if there was no sign on the door. A retailer’s unique style and familiarity can build comfort and trust with its customers. At least, until the competition copies this style, and it no longer feels unique.
Brewers & Blades: Avoiding Exhaustion in Products with Consumable Parts
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