In 2025, design patent law continued to evolve across institutions, jurisdictions, and borders. It was a busy year for design patent cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), with three precedential opinions clarifying the scope of design patent protection and who can bring a patent enforcement campaign at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). District courts were also kept busy, with recent decisions that further refined infringement, patentability, and obviousness—including the latest installment in the LKQ Corporation et al. v. General Motors Company et al. saga.
Meanwhile, despite a quiet year for design patent challenges at the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), we saw several significant procedural changes applicable to inter partes review and post-grant review challenges that pose new hurdles for both petitioners and patent owners. And finally, the ITC remains a key forum for enforcing design patents, with recent decisions underscoring that investigations are more likely to result in remedial orders when at least one design patent is asserted.
On the international front, 2025 was another year of growth and change for industrial design systems around the world, with ongoing work to advance protection for modern designs in the digital, virtual, and graphical user interface spaces, which promises to make 2026 another eventful year. Notably, the world’s leading intellectual property offices met for the 10th year of ID5 meetings, the Hague international design system turned 100, and the European Union began implementing its largest design reform in decades.
The information provided in this review is the result of a collaborative process. Thank you to coauthors — Ivy Estoesta, Daniel Gajewski, and Deirdre Wells, as well as Patrick Murray who contributed important data and statistics.
We appreciate your interest in this report, and we encourage you to read our firm’s other recently released publications: 2025 AI Intellectual Property Year in Review: Analysis & Trends, 2025 PTAB Year in Review: Analysis & Trends, Federal Circuit IP Appeals: Summaries of Key 2025 Decisions, and 2025 ITC Year in Review: Analysis & Trends, which are available here. Please contact us if you have questions or wish to discuss the future of design protection.
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