Insights

Irvine, Calif. – January 27, 2026: John Paik, an intellectual property attorney with more than two decades of experience at leading law firms and technology companies, has joined Crowell & Moring as a partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property Department in Orange County.

Design patents offer protection for the ornamental appearance of a product, focusing on aspects like its shape and surface decoration, as opposed to the functional aspects protected by utility patents. The scope of a design patent is defined by the drawings and any descriptive language within the patent itself. Recent decisions by the Federal Circuit emphasize the need for clarity in the prosecution history of a design patent in order to preserve desired scope to preserve intentional narrowing (and to avoid unintentional sacrifice of desired claim scope).

Although the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank and its progeny affected the issuance and enforcement of software patents and led to a major shift in U.S. patent policy, software patents still have value today and such protection therefore should be pursued.

In 2023 and 2024, several U.S. states enacted extensive “Right to Repair” laws, reflecting a growing legislative focus on ensuring consumers have access to the parts and resources needed to repair their own products without relying on the product’s original manufacturer. Most recently, California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon implemented comprehensive regulations aimed at providing consumers direct access to tools, parts, and information for the repair of various electronic devices and equipment, including digital products and agricultural machinery. As the “Right to Repair” movement continues to gain significant traction across the United States, it is critical that manufacturers understand these laws and how these laws will impact their individual businesses.