1. For the products produced, you should apply for a patent first, and then prepare for publicity, otherwise it will easily lead to the result of pre-sales, which will make your patented technology become existing technology, lose its novelty, and thus be invalid. If the patent has been sold to the outside world before the application, it is the most fatal, especially the appearance patent, because the internal technology involved in the utility model and invention patent is generally difficult to prove, but the appearance is relatively simple. So you should apply for a patent first.
2. The design points of appearance patent should be simple and clear.
3. When the product is upgraded, if the new product is not much different from it in appearance, it is still within its protection scope, so if a new application is submitted, it is likely that it will not be authorized due to lack of innovation. If only a part of the products have changed significantly in appearance during the upgrade process, you can also apply for a separate design patent for this part of the products.
4. The products provided by the applicant may contain many innovations. In order to save costs, the applicant can regard the whole product as a patent application. Because there are many innovations, patents are easy to evade. To extract innovation points, a single innovation point applies for a patent separately, forming a multiple patent layout.
5. If the patented product is assembled from multiple parts, if the applicant's budget allows, it will be a better choice to split the whole machine into multiple parts with authorized prospects and apply for a design patent separately.
6, similar designs, it is best to apply together. A number of similar designs are protected in an authorized patent, which is the same as the protection obtained after these designs apply for authorization. Where similar designs are applied separately, it can be considered that these designs belong to the same design, and only one of them can be submitted, otherwise both patent applications will be rejected.
7. Don't use color if it's not necessary. Under the premise of obtaining authorization, avoid asking for color protection in design specifications. Some applicants believe that requesting color protection can make the patent closer to their own products and play a better protection effect. In fact, once this is done, others may just change the color of the product to avoid patents.
8. Many applicants think that the product appearance has been protected by copyright registration, and there is no need to apply for a design patent. In fact, the latter's protection and compensation are much greater. Only through copyright protection, the compensation fee obtained by the right holder may be lower than the profit obtained by the infringer, which may lead the infringer to take risks to continue the infringement, or the compensation amount may not be enough to balance the expenditure (time, money and energy) of the right holder, which may dampen the enthusiasm of the right holder or even give up the right protection. Therefore, only copyright can not achieve a strong protection effect. It is suggested that the design patent and copyright registration should be applied at the same time.
9. If the shape, pattern or combination of the product and the combination of color, shape and pattern are innovative, you can apply for a design patent separately for the innovation of the product in shape. Because the colors and patterns of products are easy to be changed, which has a great influence on the appearance of products, applying for a patent for shape and appearance design without colors and patterns can win a greater scope of patent protection.
10 Although compared with invention patents and utility model patents, the application for design patents has lower technical content and is easier to obtain authorization. However, confirming the right should not be the ultimate goal of the patent, and the subsequent process of using the right to safeguard rights is the focus of the patent's transformation into useful value. Therefore, patent agencies should fully explore patent innovation based on the basic principle of effectively protecting patentees.