After LKQ overruled Rosen-Durling, does visual similarity still supply a motivation to combine references? ProSearch + AI traces the answer through the en banc opinion, the USPTO’s guidance memo, and a June 2025 district court ruling in LKQ’s own remand, with the authority hierarchy kept straight throughout.
ProSearch + AI surveys which rejections are most common in design patent reissue prosecution — drawn from 17 real prosecution files, with the § 251 declaration defect leading by a wide margin.
One way to increase the value of a design patent is to avoid making arguments during prosecution that disclaim, or narrow, the enforceable scope of the claim. This point was highlighted in a recent case from the Federal Circuit, Top Brand v. Cozy Comfort, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 17670 (Fed.
A total of 926 Design Patents issued on June 24, 2025. Unpublished PTAB Decisions One application (29798750) has an unpublished PTAB decision (Ex Parte Chen, 2024-000640) reversing the Examiner on an issue of obviousness with an LKQ analysis. Ex Parte Chen is another good example of an applicant overcoming an
In LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations LLC, 102 F.4th 1280 (Fed. Cir. 2024), the Federal Circuit fundamentally reshaped design patent obviousness law. LKQ successfully argued that the long-standing Rosen-Durling test, which required a primary reference to be “basically the same” as the claimed design, was too restrictive and prevented proper application of traditional