3Feb/21Off

Just to recap, design patents last 15 years, cost a one-time fee of about $2,000-$3,000, they are all public material, and can be found conveniently on Google Patents. You can patent icons, static screens, animated interactions, and “ornamental” designs to existing functions. You cannot patent something purely for function.

Have you noticed that chat messaging apps that use bubbles all look a bit different? Perhaps that wasn’t “to be unique” but rather they (legally) hadto. Companies can claim the visual shape of a message bubble to make them theirs, like Apple’s patent on their iMessage chat tails. But you cannot patent the function of being able to send messages.

...let’s look at some of the new patents in play and explore some trending companies.