“The Apple Watch’s design is now officially protected by the US Patent and Trademark Office,” Don Reisinger reports for CNET.
“Getting a design patent is an important step in protecting an invention. Apple’s newly delivered patent means other companies cannot copy the design of its wearable,” Reisinger reports. “It doesn’t, however, prevent other companies from delivering products that are similar, but not identical in design.”
“Interestingly, the design patent was filed with the USPTO in August 2014, just weeks before Apple unveiled its smartwatch at an event in September,” Reisinger reports. “Likely in an effort to hide its plans, Apple named its patent simply “Electronic device.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ll see how long this one goes without being infringed.
3… 2…
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
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Yeah like this will matter to the Chinese or the Koreans.
Nope, it won’t matter at all – http://www.zeaplus.com/
Everyone else will protest, because the design is “obviously” obvious. 🙂 (just like iPhone)
Now Sammy has a blueprint … Full speed ahead in the copy department .
Everyone knows a patent offers no protection whatsoever with the court system we have.
US Justice System: start your engines. There is more American intellectual property (design look & feel) to give away.
The lights are on, but there is nobody home.
Thanks in favor of sharing such a good opinion, article is nice,
thats why i have read it entirely
I suppose this makes Sony’s Smartwatch 3 series the baseline for how ‘close’ you can get w/o infringing then.. http://www.sonymobile.com/us/products/smartwear/
As far as I have found via searches, Apple Watch was announced Sept. 9, 2014. The earliest review for Sony’s Smartwatch 3 was Aug. 30, 2014. The watch form is rather similar with the only ‘obvious’ physical difference being the digital crown. Gives OEMs quite a big area to play in w/o the worry of infringing the Apple Watch IMO.