Samsung's latest patents

The first one certainly looks familiar from the front... well, almost, since it has a unique speaker notch... but also includes side designs that look like nothing else, and a back design like this:



The watch one is even less interesting, because it's only about the look of the wristband with camera lens.

How do we know that? Because in design patents, only solid lines are claimed. Dashed lines are meaningless and only there as a point of reference. So look again at the diagram, and notice how much is dashed:



Now let's highlight in red what's actually being patented:

Armen said:

You know what I did not know that about design patents. Thanks.

Click to expand...

You're very welcome, and now you know more than many tech journalists seem to, judging from articles like that one !!

Thanks for pointing it out.

Btw, here's a good example, in Apple's Design Patent 670286:



At first glance, you'd think that it was an iPad design with Home button etc. But then look at the actual solid lines I outlined in red.

As The Verge put it when they saw it, "Apple finally gets its patent on a rectangle with rounded corners."

Now, I suppose one could argue that it's really a patent on a flat glossy rounded rectangular, but it's ambiguous as to whether the shaded reflection lines are part of the claim.