Reexamining Aesthetics: The Federal Circuit Returns to the Academy to Review Design Patents

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) has been active in shaping design patent law in 2025, with several significant decisions and more anticipated.

In a landmark case, LKQ v. GM, the CAFC decided to rehear the case in 2024, abandoning its longstanding Rosen-Durling obviousness jurisprudence. The court held that obviousness references must be analogous, and there is a question of whether the Court should add reasonably objective guardrails to a test without an articulable standard for design patent anticipation and infringement.

In another case, LKQ v. GM (2025), the court reasoned that rigid requirements limiting a primary reference to designs that are "basically the same" as the claimed design can impose limitations absent from Section 103's broad and flexible standard.

The CAFC also addressed the importance of comparison prior art in design patent infringement analysis in Columbia Sportswear N.A. Inc. v. Seirus Innovative Accessories, Inc.

In North Star Tech Int'l v. Latham Pool Prods. (April 2025), the court affirmed the grant of motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, finding the accused design "plainly dissimilar" from the patented design without considering prior art. However, North Star has requested rehearing, arguing that the "sufficiently distinct" analysis has no objective guidance to meaningfully assess summary judgment.

Range of Motion Products and North Star Tech Int'l Ltd. have also challenged district court determinations of non-infringement under the plainly dissimilar test, with Latham disagreeing that the outcome of noninfringement is incorrect, pointing out that the district court had noted existing features in the prior art.

In Top Brand v. Cozy Comfort Company (July 2025), the court confirmed that a patentee may surrender claim scope by its representations to the patent office during prosecution. The court also granted judgment as a matter of law after a jury found infringement because the accused design was within the scope of the subject matter surrendered during prosecution.

Smartrend Manufacturing Group (SMG), Inc. v. Opti-Luxx Inc. (2025) argued that the district court erred in construing the patented design as claiming both a transparent and a translucent lens, warranting a new trial.

In Dynamite Marketing, Inc. v. The WowLine, Inc. (2025), the CAFC affirmed the dismissal as to correction of inventorship and the finding of no invalidity for functionality and infringement.

In Revision Military, Inc. v. Balboa Mfg. Co. (2012), the CAFC reversed and remanded, stating that when assessing design patent infringement, it is often helpful to refer to any prior art with which the ordinary observer would reasonably be familiar.

The CAFC also decided Lashify, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, stating that common aspects of providing goods or services, such as sales, marketing, warehousing, quality control, or distribution, do not exclude labor in supporting domestic industry for a Section 337 infringing import investigation.

Outside of the U.S., the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) for the Federal Circuit in Germany generally assesses comparability of prior artworks for copyright infringement in design patent cases on a case-by-case basis, focusing on substantial similarity and the essential characteristics of the works involved. However, there is no publicly noted announcement emphasizing a changed or particular doctrine related to this issue from the Bundesgerichtshof in the provided sources.

In The Kong Company, LLC v. Bounce Enterprises, LLC, a district court recently ordered that assignor estoppel bars defendants from asserting invalidity defenses except for obviousness. Two amicus briefs filed in support of rehearing in North Star argue that the patented and accused designs sharing "common conspicuous feature" and "common combination" are factors which could favor prior art review.

These decisions highlight the ongoing debate and evolution of design patent law, with the CAFC continuing to shape the landscape in 2025 and beyond.

Reexamining Aesthetics: The Federal Circuit Returns to the Academy to Review Design Patents