The Department of Commerce recently had a ceremony at Langdon Education Campus in Washington, DC, commemorating the issuance of the 700,000th design patent (see main image to the left). The design patent, titled Hand-held learning apparatus, was issued to LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: LF) on February 25, 2014, but the celebration ceremony was not held until March 26, 2014.
“Protecting and promoting our idea-driven economy is essential to keeping America open for business,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. “The USPTO plays a major role in serving our nation’s innovators by granting them the intellectual property rights they need to secure investment capital, build companies and bring their products and services to the global marketplace.”
The ceremony also included the launch of a new Intellectual Property (IP) Patch developed as a joint project between the USPTO, the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, and the Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Education Foundation.
“Design patents play a critical role in ensuring that America’s intellectual property system continues to be a catalyst for American companies and entrepreneurs to innovate,” said Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle Lee. “The design area has increased from twenty five and a half thousand applications in 2009 to just over thirty five thousand filings in 2013.”
I remember that it was not that long ago that the USPTO held a ceremony relative to the issuance of Design Patent No. D500,000. In early 2005, then Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez and then Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property Jon Dudas together ceremonially awarded the 500,000th design patent for DaimlerChrysler Corporation’s Crossfire convertible design.
This got me to wondering when various milestone design patents were issued. Here is the list:
| Design Patent No. 1 | November 9, 1842 | |
| Design Patent No. 100,000 | June 16, 1936 | |
| Design Patent No. 200,000 | January 5, 1965 | |
| Design Patent No. 300,000 | February 28, 1989 | |
| Design Patent No. 400,000 | October 27, 1998 | |
| Design Patent No. 500,000 | December 21, 2004 | |
| Design Patent No. 600,000 | September 15, 2009 | |
| Design Patent No. 700,000 | February 25, 2014 |
As you can see, over time, the desirability of design patents has grown, though there are still far fewer design patents than utility patents. Since we reached 400,000 design patents, it has taken only between 4.5 to 6.2 years for each subsequent 100,000 design patents, while it took nearly 94 years to reach the first 100,000 design patents.
So, when will we achieve Design Patent No. 800,000? Given the increasing popularity of design patents, I suspect the next 100,000 will be quicker than the last 100,000 by at least a bit. So, I will hazard a guess that we will see Design Patent No. 800,000 during the first quarter of 2018.
Tags: design patent, design patent application, design patents, design registrations, patent, patents, USPTO
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