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Supreme Court Weakens Design Protection Patents
werdna writes: "A recent article criticized Apple for overreaching by asserting "design protection" for the product configuration of its iMac line. Apparently the United States Supreme Court might agree with Slashdotters in an appropriate case.
In a decision handed down yesterday, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc., the Court held that product design, like color, cannot be inherently distinctive and obtain trademark-like protections, until it has acquired distinctiveness such that the marketplace naturally perceives the design to be a designation of product source, such as in the way that "International Business Machines" is associated with products from a company in Armonk rather than a general description for typewriters sold internationally.
Thus, absent a design patent, it has just become substantially tougher to obtain protections for industrial designs. Time will tell how important this decision will be."
People here on Slashdot are clamoring about "Colored plastic isn't new!" as if that's what the whole Apple/eMachines case were even about. Of course colored plastic isn't new, and that's now what Apple's complaining about.
Look, the iMac is certainly a unique design. It's basically impossible, having seen an iMac once, to think of anything else when you see it. And the eMachines clone looks exactly like an iMac. OK, so there's one more slot for a certain archaic, outdated storage device. But other than that they're identical, right down to the ventilation slots and handle; eMachines couldn't have been more brasen if they'd kept the Apple logo on the casing. This was clearly meant to confuse the consumer.
Look, there's nothing wrong with cool-looking cases. There's even nothing wrong with cool-looking cases made of translucent plastic. But for crying out loud, it's not that hard to come up with your own design. The iMac design is clearly identifiaed in the consumer's mind with one make and model of computer alone: the Apple iMac. Look at any popular-media depiction of a computer with that shape, and you'll find direct references to that machine (cases in point: UserFriendly's iWhack and FoxTrot's iFruity).
I'm not an Apple apologist; I don't defend them when they do stupid stuff. But I believe they're right to sue for this issue; this is even more blatant of a ripoff than Windows ever was. Microsoft at least made their stuff different enough that they weren't really stealing the Apple interface, but this is completely different.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
One thing I have always found interesting is that particularly distinctive colors can be trademarked. Coincidentally, IBM Blue is trademarked, as is Tiffany's Blue. The apparent rationale for this is that certain colors are so well-known and associated with a brand, it would be inherently confusing to allow them to be used by others. What I want to know is, how do you determine when a color is confusingly similar? This seems to be very subjective.
To get back on topic a bit, it's obvious from seeing a color how to imitate it, and it's almost as easy to imitate a design once you've seen it. But isn't it also quite easy to imitate a book? I agree, you couldn't reconstruct a book from memory the way you could reconstruct a piece of clothing or a color you saw in a store, but the potential is still there. So, what's the difference between the color and the book?
Walt
Interesting spin the Wal-Mart vs. Samara case.
/innovative/ new
Hemos and many other commenters read this
decision and seem stuck on an analogy between
this case and the "Apple vs eMachines" spat.
But as I began reading Scalia's decision myself,
a different analogy kept popping into my mind.
Samara started marketing an
product, "seersucker" clothes. Along comes
the big evil corporation, Wal-Mart, which
embraces and extends the "seersucker" concept
"with only minor modifications," then uses
predatory pricing practices to effectively
undermine Samara's innovation and stealing
it for their own profiteering.
Microsoft vs. (pick-your-favorite-victim)
seems to be at least as analogous to this
case as Apple vs. eMachines.
I don't see how this decision could be used to thwart Apple's attempts to protect the iMac design and "look" by design patent.
According to the decision, product design cannot obtain protection unless it has "acquired distinctiveness such that the marketplace naturally perceives the design to be a designation of product source".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the iMac was first released, it was truly an original and unique design -- older "designer" computers (such as the Acer Aspire series) notwithstanding. When you saw translucent white-and-fruity-colored-plastic, you thought "iMac".
When the first peripherals started coming out that mimicked the iMac design, they were immediately recognizeable as having done so. In fact, many (most?) of them were aggressively marketed as "for the iMac", in a blatant attempt to capitalize on the iMac's runaway success. I don't suppose Apple had any problems with these peripherals, since they indirectly promoted the iMac and its original design.
When the iMac look-alike computers started coming out, Apple began to have a problem. Apple did not want its original design to be used to manufacture and market products that directly compete against Apple's own products. And I tend to agree; by this point, the design had already been established in the minds of the people as being "iMac". I believe that this satisfies the above-stated requirement that the product have "acquired distinctiveness" so that it may obtain protection.
Therefore, I believe that in light of this ruling, Apple should in fairness be allowed to obtain patent protection for its design.
Disclaimers:
begin 644
Out of all of the branches of the US government, the only one that really doesn?t seem to suck is the Supreme Court. And, I think the reason is obvious. It's not a democratic system. The justices are appointed, for life. Sure, politicians appoint them, but there is a key difference. They can do what they think is right, not what they think will get them the most votes.
Sure, democratic governments may have been an ideal that the founding fathers believed in, but that doesn?t really mean it?s a good thing. Just look at Taiwan, 4 years of democracy, and were practically at war with fucking china. Way to go guys! That said, I don't want Taiwan to be sucked into Communist china, but I don't want to be at war with them ether.
Perhaps its time to rethink the system, I don't know what to replace it with, but a review may be in order. (Perhaps electing government people for a long term, with no chance of reelection, with a special recall vote if necessary)
Look at all the stuff that's happening in the US, and the rest of the world, moving it to an Orwillian nightmare; it isn't being stopped, because most people just don't care.
Not that I have a solution or anything, but that doesn?t mean I can't complain.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Redmond (AP) -- Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer announced the company will still be enforcing its trademark on the color coloquially known as "BSOD Blue". When questioned about the recent landmark decision Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Samara Brothers, Inc., Balmer said: "Microsoft firmly believes that this shade of blue, consistent with QUALITEX CO. v. JACOBSON PRODUCTS CO., has acquired 'a secondary meaning' which 'serves no other purpose' and is therefore a permissable trademark under the Lanham act. After all, what purpose could this blue serve other than to identify a computer as running Windows? Surely it is not to inform the user that his computer has crashed when crashing is implicit in the very notion of running Windows".
No immediate lawsuits have been filed, but the suspected potential respondents are believed to be undergoing puberty somewhere in Scandinavia.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes