US Patent 7107621 was granted for optical illusion wear, which is basically a suit for females that has a pattern conducive to thinking they are skinnier than they actually are. Although perhaps there would be some market acceptance for such a product, it is unlikely that the patent should have been granted based on the requirements for patentability.
1) In terms of novelty, it is not the first article of clothing that has attempted at making people look skinnier, even if it is the first that uses the design.
2) The biggest question here is whether the suit is useful by the standards of patents. In my opinion, this should not pass the test for usefulness.
If anything, I believe that this should have been granted a design patent instead of a utility patent.
(Information obtained from http://www.patentlysilly.com/patent.php?patID=7107621)
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ReplyDeleteI would likely never purchase a product such as this and do not understand at all why this "creation" merited a patent. As a female, I can attest to the fact that we have been using patterns to conceal the more unflattering parts of our bodies for centuries... How strange that this would be given a utility patent.
Good find.
Hey Roshan,
ReplyDeleteI think your point that this patent should have been a design patent, instead of a utility patent, was extremely accurate. The design doesn't seem to add any utility to the user, and would therefore seem to be exempt from being classified as a utility patent. By the patent writer and examiner's logic, it would seem that they would grant a patent to any clothing design!
HI Roshan,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very strange patent, but quite silly indeed. The usefulness of a patent can only be judged by a customer base. Many times we might reject a concept solution or design thinking that a customer would not want to buy something like it, when in fact sometimes, we judge solutions more critically than customers do. Just look around at some of the silly apps on the iPhone that have gathered so many customers and users. So, sometimes, it might be too early to dismiss a patent as silly.
Hi Roshan! Great find! I do disagree with you on the usefulness part—I do think this is useful, but perhaps not so novel, as Nidhi mentioned, women have been using patterns and dark colors to make them look slimmer for a while now. I also feel that this should have been a design patent, but I do understand why they decided to make it an utility patent (the utility is making women seem thinner). I think there may be a social stigma for women to wear this, so enablement would be difficult.
ReplyDelete