this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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209
The Patent Office Is About To Make Bad Patents Untouchable (www.eff.org)
submitted 5 days ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 46 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah this is bad, seeing what some people patent, apparently just hoping it will stick and make them some money down the line.

I was going to put some particularly egregious examples here, but there's too much choice - just search "worst dumb us patents" or some such.

OK, this article focuses on dumb and pointless, which is what I was going for:

2. A stick. Seriously, in 1999, someone received a patent for a toy made of “any number of materials including rubber, plastic, or wood including wood composites” for “an animal, for example a dog, to either fetch, carry or chew” and including “at least one protrusion extending therefrom that resembles a branch in appearance.” While the description is bad enough, you have to look at the image submitted to fully appreciate how ridiculous this one is. USPTO actually granted a patent on a fake stick.

1. My all-time favorite dumb patent is Apple’s design patent for… a rectangle with rounded corners. Granted in 2012, Apple received a patent for the shape of its product, which is pretty standard. It’s a rectangle. It has rounded corners. The entirety of the single claim reads, “The ornamental design for a portable display device, as shown and described,” with several pictures of what looks to be the shape of an iPad.

[–] FatCrab@slrpnk.net 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What is described in the second point is literally how Design Patent claims work. They don't work the same way as utility patents. Anyway, yea, people not knowing how patents actually work aside, leadership at the USPTO is currently fucked.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The point is that design patents are fucking stupid and should not exist in the first place.

Apple has sued other phone manufacturers over them making a rectangle with rounded corners.

And it's fucked.

[–] FatCrab@slrpnk.net -4 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Design patents effectively work like brand protection. They literally only protect new aesthetics and ornamentation. The reality is that the iPhone did start the trend of rounded corner rectangular touchscreen phones. When it first came out, it was a fairly novel form factor for a phone. It didn't prevent other form factors from being released. Like, the fact that it is now so ubiquitous that we take for granted smartphones look this way is a testament to its success. And, actually, plenty of phones did right angle screen corners. Design Patents are extraordinarily narrow things and, among the many issues with the current USPTO and the US IP system in general, it is probably the absolutely least problematic piece.

[–] Devial@discuss.online 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

"They're extradonarily narrow" whilst literally talking about an apple patent that covers ANY type of digital display device whatsoever that has rounded corners.

That's not even close to "extremely narrow" in scope.

Extremely narrow in scope would be defining a certain radius of curvature (within a small +/- range), in combination with an aspect ratio (again, with a small +/- margin) and for a specific class of screen.

That would be an adequately and acceptably narrow design patent.

And on top, there needs to be a limitation on design patents (any patents, frankly) that makes them unenforceable if the holder of the patent hasn't had a product matching the patent on the marker for several years, and isn't currently and actively working on R&D to develop such a product. (With some common sense clauses to prevent abuse, such as ordering one employee to spend 5 minutes a month working on a concept so that you're technically perpetually engaged in R&D, or listing a depreciated product for an absurdly high price that no one will ever pay, so you can say technically it's still on the market without needing to actually still manufacturer/support it).

Though I'd be happy to hear counter arguments for why this would be a bad idea.

[–] architect@thelemmy.club 3 points 4 days ago

I would argue the old brick phones did it first. Apple just made it thinner.

[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Rectangle is obviously the standard shape of phone and had been since before mobile phones basically.

Rounding of corners is standard engineering practice, sharp edges are a weak point, rounding them off increases the overall strength.

What is described is not aesthetics or ornamentation, it’s an engineering imperative obvious in airplane windows, car windows, diaries (many have their corners rounded anticipating wear and tear), pockets (many pockets are rounded off instead of sharply square to prevent the corner failing).

Apple could perhaps argue nobody had rounded the corners as much as they did in earlier phones, without further altering the design beyond a rectangle. But that shouldn’t give them such a wide patent, a narrow patent on the specific shape would be sufficient.

Another way to put this. If the shape you’re trying to patent has a css property dedicated to it (corner-radius) it may not be sufficiently specific.

[–] FatCrab@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I would have to look into the actual patent and file wrapper, but presumably it didn't cover just any rounding of rectangular corners, but as you said, a defined range.

Where bad patents get through prosecution, they are problematic, be they design patents or utility patents, but design patents in general are not even a blip on the radar of what needs to be fixed in our IP system imo. As a general rule of thumb, they are in fact fairly narrow. Meanwhile, pharma patents very much need focused and thoughtful revisions, and IP around software needs to be reworked from the ground up basically, creating special rules for patents and dropping the legislatively declared copyright framework entirely. The problem is that reporting on IP is fucking awful so people say things like "ohmyglob this design patents doesn't even have real claims" even though that's literally how they are structured and enforcing the right requires a pretty intensive investigation of the drawings and line patterns therein.

But, sure, I'll give that maybe Apple's design patent in this case was overly broad. I'm not particularly interested in defending Apple's IP.

[–] scratchee@feddit.uk 1 points 1 hour ago

I largely agree, software patents are a joke for sure.

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 21 points 5 days ago

It seems like the US patent system today is rarely anything but a solution to its own problem. In most cases a patent is little more than an expensive troll ward or a way to demonstrate due diligence to investors. What’s taken its place is time to market. If that’s true, the patent system should either be replaced with something that serves its intended purpose or that office should stop accepting applications.