U.S. Patent No. D835,564 S (‘564) issued on December 11, 2018, for “Wiper.” It was issued to inventors Franz Von Holzhausen of Malibu, California, David Tadashi Imai of Los Angeles, California, Randy Rodriguez of Torrance, California, and Julien Bilodeau of Los Angeles, California. The applicant/assignee is Tesla, Inc. of Palo Alto, California, the high-end electric car company. This patent is a design patent under 35 U.S.C. §171, which protects the ornamental features of an article of manufacture. The features cover a novel design for windshield wiper, which will be used on the Tesla Semi, the electric semi-trailer truck that is planned for production later this year.
Figure 2 illustrates the ornamental features of the wiper blade:
The Cooperative Patent Classification is B60S (servicing, cleaning, repairing, supporting, lifting, or manuveuring of vehicles, namely, cleaning of vehicles characterized by joint between elements (2001/3815), and connections between blades and arms for multi-purpose connections for two or more kinds of arm ends (1/4003)).
Design patents are slowly becoming an important aspect of a tech company’s patent portfolio. The ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung highlighted the importance of properly issued design patents which can be used for both assertive and defensive litigation. Design patents are about 10% of all patents issued by the USPTO, and that number is growing steadily every year. Please contact Yonaxis for more information on design patents, or patents in general, if you have any questions.