Many Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers report that when applying for U.S. design patents, they always encounter rejections, and they are often rejected because the line drawings are not up to standard. This is because each country has different censorship requirements, resulting in submitted line drawings that always fail to meet U.S. standards. This article will focus on introducing: the line drawing regulations of US design patents. I hope it can help all sellers.
1. Line drawing provisions of U.S. design patents: application drawings and patent drawings.
Chinese sellers need to submit patent drawings and application drawings. In the United States, appearance application pictures must contain three types of lines: solid lines, hatched lines, and dotted lines; appearance patent pictures must contain seven lines, with special emphasis on hatched lines. The main function of hatched lines is to distinguish the represented features, such as curved surfaces, Shadow changes on spherical surfaces, concave and convex surfaces, etc.; therefore, shadow lines are powerful evidence used to distinguish the scope of protection of appearance patents.
In addition, solid lines are also very important, because they are used to protect the outline of the item, and they often appear in conjunction with hatched lines to represent the protected part of the appearance patent. When drawing the surface of an object, these lines are often used to summarize the outline and characteristics of the object, and are applied to spherical, cylindrical, and conical items. Therefore, it is required to be thinner than the outline line to facilitate comparison and differentiation with other lines.
The dotted lines are mainly to assist explanation. And it is often used in the protection boundary field of design rights; or it is used in the structural environment of design rights. The dotted line is not an important part of the design patent claim, and any hatching lines cannot be used in the dotted line part.
2. Line drawing experience in US patents.
Chinese sellers should choose to draw mechanical drawings and apply for drawings based on the three forms of U.S. patents – invention, appearance, and plant.
In short, the above is a complete introduction to the “line drawing provisions of U.S. design patents”. Only after Chinese sellers understand the functions of the above types of lines and are proficient in drawing perspective pictures such as front views and top views can they be able to implement the initial steps of patent applications; in particular, they should pay attention to the different types of lines included in application drawings and patent drawings. of.