Design patents: an under-used option.

The USPTO has just announced the issuance design patent no. 700,000.  In contrast, the USPTO has issued well in excess of eight million utility patents.  Last year, the USPTO issued over 250,000 utility patents (hat tip to Dennis Crouch).  

If you're prosecuting claims to an invention that includes structural components, I think it's worth considering whether a design application shouldn't be part of your strategy.  I'm reminded of a case from a few years back between a couple of Asian manufacturers of cellphone components. The four patents in suit were design patents, directed to the LEDs that are commonly used in cellphone displays.  This is a copy of the figures from one of the design patents in suit (click on the figure to embiggen).

US D491,538

The design here related to the shape of the LED, and the electrodes that protrude from the sides of the LED.  The defendant was found to have infringed, even though the entire LED is smaller than a grain of rice and is not normally visible to the user of the cellphone.

You have to wonder, looking at these figures, if the examiner appreciated how tiny these things are, and what their use was going to be.  Fortunately (?) for the patentee, the figures in the patents did not show the LEDs in their actual size.