DESIGNING *for humans

Discussing Apple on Bloomberg

 

 I appeared on Bloomberg TV's Market Makers the day after Apple's WWDC keynote to dicuss the present and future of Apple design.

Philadelphia - Hotbed of UX Patents?

 

ENIAC Computer - Philadelphia (approx 1946)

 

When one thinks of the centers of interaction design innovation, Philadelphia may not be the first city to come to mind (unless you live/work here, of course).  But a couple of recent items in the UX patents world might make you think otherwise:

• On May 21st, Twitter was granted patent 8,448,084 for user interface mechanics, aka "pull to refresh".  While Twitter, the patent assignee is a west coast firm, the inventor, Loren Brichter is based out of West Chester, PA - not quite Philadelphia, but close enough.  See this recent Wall Street Journal piece on Brichter's, referring to him as a "high priest of app design".  With their Innovator's Patent Agreement, Twitter is promising that the 084 patent "will only be used for defensive purposes".  We'll see how this plays out going forward.
  
   
• Then, on June 1st, Joe Mullin of Ars Technica reported on another local development.   Flatworld Interactive is currently suing Apple for infringement on touch screen patents for swiping gestures invented by Slavko Milekic, professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  Moreover, Flatworld Interactive is partly owned by John McAleese,  formerly of Philadelphia-based law firm Morgan Lewis - a firm that represents Apple.  

Interesting times - in an interesting place.  And rememember, the Constitution, which provides the rights to patents, was written right here in Philadelphia.

Learn more about interaction design patents at my upcoming presentation - No Swiping.  Patents in the Interaction Design Process.

No Swiping. Patents in the Interaction Design Process.

I am collaborating with PhillyCHI  and special guest, Leonid “Lenny” Kravetz, to discuss the basics of design and utility patents, and the relevancy of patents to the interaction design process.

More info below; and for additional details and registration, go to the PhillyCHI site.

** REGISTRATION REQUIRED FOR THIS EVENT **

• Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2013
• Time: 6:00PM – 9:00PM (social time from 6:00PM-7:00PM)
• Location: Bresslergroup, Marketplace Design Center, 2400 Market St. 1-2 (basement), Philadelphia
• Phone: 215-209-3046

About the Presentation

While the visibility and value of user interface patents is greater than ever, the area remains unfamiliar to many interaction designers.  In this informative session, a designer and a patent attorney will explain the basics of design and utility patents. highlight significant examples and discuss the role of patents in the design process.  We will also facilitate a design activity where participants will generate design concepts to avoid infringing on existing patents.

About the Presenters

Rob Tannen, PhD is Director of Research & Interaction Design at Bresslergroup.  He has over 15 years’ experience leading  interface design projects across a variety of industries including aviation, consumer products, manufacturing,  financial services and healthcare.  He is a frequent speaker and contributor to online and print publications including FastCompany.com & Design Bureau as well as his own blog,DesigningForHumans.com. Rob earned a PhD in human factors and is a Certified Professional Ergonomist.  He has consulted on several patent cases and projects.  Follow Rob on Twitter @RobTannen.

Leonid “Lenny” Kravetz is a patent attorney at Panitch, Schwarze, Belisario and Nadel, LLP in Philadelphia, PA. Lenny focuses his practice on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions in computer-related technology areas. He specializes in developing IP strategy for young technology companies and blogs on this topic at StartupsIP.com. Follow Lenny on Twitter @lkravets.

About Our Sponsor

Bresslergroup is a Philly-based product development firm that’s been delivering innovative solutions for over 40 years. We’re proud to have won more than 80 international design awards and authored well over 130 patents. Our team of PhD-led researchers, engineers, interaction and industrial designers clarify problems and deliver user-centric solutions. Visit www.bresslergroup.com to learn more, and follow us on Twitter at @Bresslergroup.

About PhillyCHI

PhillyCHI is the Philadelphia region’s chapter of the ACM SIGCHI, an interdisciplinary academic and professional group interested in Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience, Usability, and other related disciplines. PhillyCHI holds monthly meetings and socials to network and discuss current topics in HCI. Learn more at phillychi.acm.org or follow along on Twitter at @PhillyCHI.

The Past Present & Future of User Interface Design Patents

 

Animated graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof US D609715 S1

 
Last week I attended the United States Patent & Trademark Office's 7th Design Day.  Design Day 2013 focused on  "Designs in the New Digital Age" - design patent issues related to user interfaces. While UI patents had been touched on in previous years, this was the first time that the day-long meeting placed emphasis on this rapidly growing area, and was clearly motivated by last year's Apple-Samsung case. 

 The attendees  and presenters were predominately lawyers and USPTO examiners, along with a handful of  design experts like myself.  As in previous years, the majority of designers attending were drawn from  Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), but with the growth of user interface patents I would expect to see a larger involvement with  interface/interaction designers and organizations in the future.

The opening presentations by the USPTO staff included an update on the written description requirement for design patents by Joel Sincavage, Design Practice Specialist.  Without getting into the details, suffice it to say that the majority of lawyers in the audience were not happy to hear what was being presented and the Q&A turned into what I can only imagine a contentious school board or city council zoning meeting must be like.

This was followed by a much more subdued update regarding the United State's implementation of the Hague Agreement, which will streamline the process of filing design patents across multiple countries.

The subsequent presentations predominately focused on user interface design and comprise my summary.  While the presentations were not structured in a chronological order, there was a clear pattern of discussing the history of UI design patents, current data and future needs:

Past
For context, the patentability of user interfaces has been a topic of discussion for decades, but has only been formalized in recent years and is still evolving.    Cathron Brooks, Supervisory Patent Examiner at the USPTO, described "how it all started" with Xerox applying for design patents on its user interfaces in the 1980s, which catalyzed discussion and debate over what characteristics of user interfaces could be patentable.  

Charles Mauro of MauroNewMedia contextualized the Xerox patents within a timeline, mapping key events in user interface development with important patent events from the 1960s to the present:

 

Charles Mauro's timeline of UI development & patent events

In addition, Masashi Omine, a Deputy Director of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) described the history of interface design patents in his home country, starting from the patenting of liquid crystal display designs (e.g. digital watches) starting in 1986, subsequently extending to graphic images (2006), and more recently, dynamic graphics (2011).  On a related note, China does not currently provide any patent protection for user interface designs, although this may change long-term.

Present
Rob Katz of Banner & Witcoff provided summary statistics on the current state of user interface design patents, which make-up about 2% of all design patent applications.  This translates to roughly 500 UI design patent filings per year with the USPTO, but has been rapidly accelerating. Brooks of the USPTO indicated that "Generated Images" (referring to user interfaces and icons) are the fatest growing segment of design patents.  

It's important to keep in mind that design patents are only one form of intellectual property of protection for user interfaces, which can also be covered by utility patents, trademarks and copyrights.  Mauro suggests that all of these forms of IP protection are needed to cover the entire user experience (UX), but that current processes  are not integrated, requiring a strategic approach. Apple demonstrated such a strategy in their case against Samsung, which included multiple design patents, utility patents and trade dress IP.   Katz  mentioned that it is rare for a design patent to include both aspects of the physical product design and the user interface design, as it is typically more effective to patent each separately. 

 

Charles Mauro's depiction of the multiple forms of UX IP protection

 While user interface patents are growing in prominence and value, there are constraints in the design patent application process.  For example Brooks discussed some of the basic requirements for user interface design patents, which include referencing a physical object or system such as a computer or display screen.  Dynamic interactions such as animations or transitions can be submitted as a series of static images like a "flip book" or storyboard, but only those images presented are covered by the patent.

Future
The takeaways from Design Day 2013 were clear - user interface design patents are more important now than ever, and there is a need to evolve the processes around protecting them.  In the short-term this includes increasing staffing at the USPTO to support the growing number of UI design patent applications, and to continue the dialogue between stakeholders at events like Design Day.  I also strongly recommend that user interface designers improve their education and processes around patents.  

Looking further ahead I would expect the USPTO processes to catch-up (or at least narrow the gap) with the design and technology  it is intended to protect.  This may mean more suitable forms for documenting and describing interactive designs as well as a more cohesive approach to combining related forms of IP such as design and utility patents as appropriate.

Finally, consider what David Kappos, former director of the USPTO, wrote last week in the National Law Journal in a piece entitled Design: The New Frontier of Intellectual Property.  Kappos, perhaps anticipating the discussions that would take place at Design Day 2013, admonished:

"But for the breakthrough ­innovators of the 21st century, design has moved onto a much larger stage. It is where high function meets high style. And the traditional disciplines of IP — patents, trademarks and copyrights — are no longer ends unto themselves but are now viewed as component parts of a larger whole."

FieldCREW Concept on Windows Phone

In 2008 Bresslergroup presented FieldCREW - a concept tablet and software system empowering user researchers and designers conducting field research.  It included features for real-time video capture and tagging of observed activities, allowing a single researcher to have the observation capabilities of a team, and a team of observers to synchronize their observations as though they were a single researcher.  FieldCREW recevied widespread coverage on sites including SlashGear, the Awesomer, and Core77.

Fast forward five years, and to the Core77/Windows Phone App to the Future Design Challenge. Now we have reconceptualized FieldCREW as an app, providing the same core features as the original concept, in a more realizable and usable format (but, still a concept).

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The Bresslergroup app team, led by myself and interaction designer Matt Thomas, created the information architecture and visual design  for the app version based on the Windows Phone guidelines.  

Watch this the video for more information and screen examples for the Windows 8 phone concept version of FieldCREW: