Design Patent Data: Firms Navigate Enforcement Spike

Design patent litigation has risen recently, particularly in Chicago's Northern District of Illinois, as brands actively enforce their rights. Data from Unified Patents show a significant rise in design patent infringement cases, with the district court witnessing 6 filings in 2021, which sharply increased to 172 in 2024. Meanwhile, other U.S. district courts collectively saw filings ascend from 26 in 2021 to 192 in 2024.

Most design patent cases filed in the Northern District of Illinois are classified as Schedule A cases, where a company sues multiple defendants in a single lawsuit. However, due to how labor-intensive Schedule A cases can be, firms that do file such cases need to be strategic with how they navigate the challenges. Finnegan partner Beth Ferrill told Managing Intellectual Property that she hasn’t filed Schedule A cases on behalf of plaintiffs but has consulted with some clients who are defendants.

She said she’s spent some time looking into how plaintiffs’ lawyers in Schedule A cases overcome joinder rules – which require plaintiffs to show that defendants are related to one another. Beth added that some of the judges in the Northern District of Illinois, including Judge LaShonda Hunt, Judge John Robert Blakey, and Judge Sunil Harjani, have started to issue sua sponte challenges to the joinder statements, sometimes dismissing all but one of the defendants.

“It’s not just one judge that’s doing this. So that’s kind of interesting. This has been going on for a while. But the judges are starting to ask questions about the joinder.”

Furthermore, Beth observes that more companies have been drawn to filing for design patents post the Apple v. Samsung decision, which highlighted the substantial damages potential in design patent lawsuits.

"Some of this is just a maturing of that system. There are just more companies with design patents and they’re exercising their rights to enforce those patents," she said

She added that the rise in design patent litigation in the data is consistent with her experience.

“I feel like it picked up towards the end of the pandemic and has continued to be quite robust since then.”

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