GM Dealt Setback as Fed. Cir. Dumps Design Patent Test (Correct)

The full Federal Circuit overruled a decades-old test used to assess whether design patents are obvious, and thus invalid, taking a win over a design patent for a front fender away from a General Motors Co. unit.

The Rosen-Durling test, established in 1996, had come under attack from critics, including large makers of replacement vehicle parts, who argued it set an almost impossibly high bar and allowed automakers to patent—and charge above-market prices for—parts that contain only incremental, non-innovative design changes over previous iterations.

In the first en banc rehearing at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ...