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[drahkan]

Hello,

New here.  Apologize if this has been answered before but I couldn't find anything.

I have a product that I want to get a design patent for, however there are various sub-designs.  The product is basically the same throughout except for a modification at a certain part.  Let me give an example (the following is not my product, and this is a really dumb example but hopefully it illustrates the point):  Let's say my product is a pair of pants with a tail.  Now, that tail can either be a skunk's tale, a lion's tail, or a horse's tail.  The only difference would be the tail.  The pants are exactly the same in each case, and they are just ordinary jeans.  Let's say nobody has thought of this before (I don't know if they have or not).  First, is this a patentable idea, and second, would I have to get a separate patent for each tail design, or can I put language in the patent to just cover pants with a tail?

Appreciate any helpful responses.  Thank you!!

[Dazed-n-confused]

Hello,

New here.  Apologize if this has been answered before but I couldn't find anything.

I have a product that I want to get a design patent for, however there are various sub-designs.  The product is basically the same throughout except for a modification at a certain part.  Let me give an example (the following is not my product, and this is a really dumb example but hopefully it illustrates the point):  Let's say my product is a pair of pants with a tail.  Now, that tail can either be a skunk's tale, a lion's tail, or a horse's tail.  The only difference would be the tail.  The pants are exactly the same in each case, and they are just ordinary jeans.  Let's say nobody has thought of this before (I don't know if they have or not).  First, is this a patentable idea, and second, would I have to get a separate patent for each tail design, or can I put language in the patent to just cover pants with a tail?

Appreciate any helpful responses.  Thank you!!

First, it is patentable IF it is both new, and not just an obvious change from something previously known.

Second, it is my understanding (maybe others will come and correct this if wrong) that you will indeed have to file different ornamental design applications for each appended tail design on your pants.  While you can have a several drawings showing different views of a thing in a single ornamental design application, these are just different views of the (one) thing for which the design patent is applied. 

You can see live examples of this if you go to the USPTO patent database (link below) and type into the first search box the name goodyear and select "assignee name" from the first dropdown, and in the second box type the numeral 4 and select "application type" from the second drop down.  (type 4 = design patent applications).

If you do this and start looking at the tire images, you'll examples where the tread patterns differ only slightly from design patent to design patent (sometimes it's hard to tell the difference at first).  Even more to the point of your hypothetical, you'll find some where the tread pattern in one design patent is the same as for another design patent, but only the style of the blackwall/whitewall differs, or only the lettering style differs.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html
** If you click for "Images" but can't view them, look for the tiny red "help" link near the upper right corner.  This link leads to free TIFF viewer downloads.