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Question:
List two conditions under which a copyright notice may be included in a design patent application.
Answer:
It is the policy of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to permit the inclusion of a copyright notice in a design patent application, and thereby any patent issuing therefrom, under the following conditions:
(A) A copyright notice must be placed adjacent to the copyright material and, therefore, may appear at any appropriate portion of the patent application disclosure, including the drawing.
- However, if appearing on the drawing, the notice must be limited in print size from 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch and must be placed within the “sight” of the drawing immediately below the figure representing the copyright material.
- If placed on a drawing in conformance with these provisions, the examiner will not object to the notice as extraneous matter.
(B) The content of the copyright notice must be limited to only those elements required by law. For example, “© 1983 John Doe” would be legally sufficient and properly limited.
(C) Inclusion of a copyright notice will be permitted only if the following waiver is included at the beginning (preferably as the first paragraph) of the specification to be printed for the patent:
- A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material to which a claim for copyright is made. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but reserves all other copyright rights whatsoever.
(D) Inclusion of a copyright notice after a Notice of Allowance has been mailed will be permitted only if the criteria of 37 CFR 1.312 have been satisfied.
Chapter Details:
The answer to this question can be found in chapter 1500 of the MPEP. This chapter covers Design Patents.
The answer is from the 9th Edition, Revision 01.2024, published November 2024. Depending on future changes to the MPEP, the question and answer may or may not be applicable in later Editions or revisions.
Section Summary:
This question and answer come from section 1512 of the MPEP. The following is a brief summary of section 1512.
1512 Relationship Between Design Patent, Copyright, and Trademark
This section discusses the relationship between design patents, copyrights, and trademarks.