Apple now owns the design patent for their “wedge design” found on their 2011 Macbook Air models, which has quickly become popular with other “ultrabook” manufactures.
This may pose problem now for future or even existing ultrabook models, because those manufactures utilizing such a design or even look similar to the wedge design, may have to redesign their models symmetrical again instead of using Apple’s patent. oops!
Here are a few examples of PC manufactures benefiting from the wedge design.
Here are a few examples of PC manufactures that took it upon themselves not to use the wedge design.
The most famous design patent I could compare this to when I googled “design patent” just now would probably be the hour glass shaped coke bottle design that was originally patented in 1915. Apparently, coke designed their bottle in such a way that should the bottle break or was felt in the dark, a person could tell quickly what it was.
We’ll have to see if Apple plans to put pressure on manufacturer’s now that they own the patent. It’s not like they haven’t done it before.
Design patents are good for 14 years apparently, but it’s interesting to see the coke bottle design still undergoes continuous redesigns. I wonder what computers will look like from now after 14 years?
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