U.S. Design patents cover new, original and ornamental designs for articles of manufacture. For example, design patents are often used to protect ornamental furniture designs. Unlike utility patents, which cover functional features of new and useful processes, machines, manufactures and compositions of matter, design patents cover only ornamental features of articles of manufacture. Like a utility patent, a design patent gives its owner the exclusive right to make, use, offer to sell, sell and import the patented invention in the United States during the term of the patent. The term of a design patent is fourteen (14) years.

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