Comparison To Trademark and Trade Dress
Trademarks and trade dress are used to protect consumers from confusion as to the source of a manufactured object. To get trademark protection, the trademark owner must show that the mark is not likely to be confused with other trademarks for items in the same general class. The trademarks can last indefinitely as long as they are used in commerce.
Design patents are only granted if the design is novel and not obvious for all items, even those of different utility than the patented object. An actual shield of a given shape, for example, can be cited as prior art against a design patent on a computer icon with a shield shape. The validity of design patents is not affected by whether or not the design is commercialized.
Items can be covered by both trademarks and design patents. The contour bottle of Coca-Cola, for example, was covered by a now expired design patent, but is still however protected by at least a US registered trademark.
Read more about this topic: Design Patent
Famous quotes containing the words comparison to, comparison, trade and/or dress:
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—Shusha Guppy (b. 1938)
“What is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the infinite, an all in comparison with the nothing—a mean between nothing and everything.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever—whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman—a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“... my one aim and concentrated purpose shall be and is to show that women can learn, can reason, can compete with men in the grand fields of literature and science ... that a woman can be a woman and a true one without having all her time engrossed by dress and society.”
—M. Carey Thomas (1857–1935)