At some point during the huge Apple versus Samsung lawsuit scandal someone said as a joke that Apple should patent the rectangle. Well, they’re close to it, since they’ve just received the patent for rectangle with rounded corners basically. The US Patent and Trademark Office issued patent number D670,286 to Apple yesterday, regarding the outer shape of a device.
I have to say that if we follow the sketch above as the landmark for tablet designs, there are hundreds of models breaching this patent. The previous design patens regarding the iPad and iPhone included at least one extra feature in solid lines, like Home Button or the bezel shape or the back surface contour. This one doesn’t even include such features and simply refers to the shape of the slate. This is a hugely broad patent, very broad actually and I can already smell some new trials coming.
The good thing here is that the drawing offers a limit to a specific proportion in size, so for example tablets with different aspect ratios are safe. Such a patent is an advantage for Apple, but also a handicap, because it can be called invalid easily by a judge, jury or even the patent office. So, overall it’s a very fragile weapon, so let this go…
