NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW VOLUME 5
FALL 2015
NUMBER 1
A DEFENSE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES MAGGIE DIAMOND* The protection of industrial design in the United States has been criticized for its ill-aligned functionality doctrines, as an inefficient incentive scheme, as well as for its costly and prolonged rights acquisition periods. This note explores the scope of U.S. industrial design protection in copyright, trademark and design patent, concluding that design patent provides the strongest basis to rebut these criticisms. Not only does the positive enforcement of design patents speak to the protection's strength, but the normative scope of the right is calibrated to incentivize innovative designs. A wholesale reform of U.S. industrial design is not required to address cost and time criticisms; compliance with certain national and international obligations is sufficient.
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J.D. Candidate, New York University School of Law, 2015. The author would like to thank the Editorial Board of the Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law and participants of the 2015 Innovation Policy Colloquium. 1