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Protect Your GUI

09-04-2009 [Ben Hanrahan] [Permalink]

A graphical user interface or “GUI” is a collection of graphical icons, pictures, and other visual indicators that are used to interact with electronic devices, software applications, and/or web sites.  It is the GUI that each end user interacts with when accessing the associated software application or web site.  It should thus come as no surprise that the owner of a web site employing a unique GUI will often seek to protect the GUI from being copied or imitated by others.

 

For instance, copyright is often used as a way to protect certain original artistic features of the GUI.  Importantly, however, U.S. Copyright Laws do not prevent others from independently creating the same form of expression, e.g., without “copying” the owner’s GUI. 

 

This may be one reason companies like Google are turning to the use of design patents as an additional layer of protection.  In general, design patents protect the original and ornamental design of a functional device.  35 U.S.C. 171 (“Whoever invents any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture may obtain a patent therefor…”). 

 

As shown below, Google’s most recent design patent, U.S. Patent No. D599,372, for a “Graphical User Interface for a Display Screen of a Communications Terminal” issued on September 1, 2009.