Lost in the Drawings: What 21 abandoned design applications show and what practitioners might consider

File wrapper citations in this article link to the documents in ProSearch. A free Design Patent Pro account is all that is needed to open them.

Most of what we publish comes from design patents that issued. This week we looked at the other side: design applications abandoned between September 14 and September 20, 2026 whose files are open to the public and that drew at least one rejection. There were 21 of them. Fifteen are Hague designations. The other six are domestic applications that are public because a related application in the family has issued or been published.

The main lesson is that prior art is not what ends most design applications. In 15 of the 21 files the examiner rejected the drawings under 35 USC 112. In three of the Hague files the examiner said in writing that the design was patentable over the art, or that the application was in condition for allowance apart from formal matters, and the applicant still let it go. Only four of the 21 applicants ever answered a rejection on the merits.

1. The Week in Numbers

• 21 abandoned histories reviewed: 15 Hague designations and 6 domestic applications. Every one had at least one non-final rejection, which is how the batch is collected.
• How they ended: 18 for failure to reply, 16 of them to a non-final action and 2 after a final rejection. Two were expressly abandoned, one in favor of a continuing application. One was allowed and then abandoned for nonpayment of the issue fee.
• Section 112 drawing rejections: 15. Restriction requirements: 7. Specification or description objections to functional or extraneous text: 4.
• 102 rejections: 3. 103 rejections: 5. Double patenting: 3. Section 171 (no article of manufacture): 1.
• Rule 130 or Rule 132 declarations: none. Interviews: 1. Appeals: none.
• LKQ v. GM cited by an examiner: once.
• Abandoned files tied to an issued design patent: 3 (the parents of D1,083,474 and D1,130,469, and a continuation child of D1,125,106).

Method note: these are application-level counts across the 21 file histories. One file may carry several grounds, so the categories overlap. The batch is small and one week long, so treat the numbers as a snapshot, not as rates.

2. Lost in the Drawings

Eleven of the 15 Hague files received a single Office action and never replied, and in most of them the main problem was the drawings. The reproductions that satisfied the International Bureau did not satisfy a US examiner applying 112(a) and (b). The defects were ordinary ones:

• Views that disagree with each other. In Application No. 35/524,359 (portable baby crib) the pocket and strap were drawn one way in the open views and another way in the folded views. In Application No. 35/524,774 (photographer’s cloak) the seam joining the hood to the body appears in seven views and is missing from seven others. Extra views are a common source of this problem: every folded, alternate or in-use view has to match the others seam for seam.
• Solid black fill. In Application No. 35/524,522 (side table) black fill on the base hid its contours. In Application No. 35/525,034 (board game) black shading and low resolution made it impossible to count the game pieces. That examiner offered an unusual way out: disclaim all but the five pieces that were clearly shown.
• Depth that no view resolves. In Application No. 35/524,516 (audio player) and Application No. 35/524,629 (air conditioner), features seen only in flat top, bottom or rear views could have been recesses, protrusions or surface indicia. In Application No. 35/524,716 (cutting insert) gray tones stood in for the contours of recessed surfaces, and the examiner asked whether the side walls were “straight or concave or some other configuration.”
• Line quality. In Application No. 35/521,284 (EV charging station) lines “merge together into excessively thick black lines in which fine detail is lost.” In Application No. 35/525,057 (guitar armrest) even the disclaimed guitar was drawn with faint, irregular dotted lines, and that alone supported a 112 rejection.

Three of these were designs the Office had effectively cleared on the art. In the side table and the guitar armrest the examiner wrote that the claimed design was patentable over the prior art. In the cloak the action opened with “This application is in condition for allowance, except for the following formal matters.” In every case the examiner had also marked up the drawings and proposed the broken-line fix. None of the three applicants replied.

Application No. 35/520,781 (medical injector) shows what happens when an applicant does try to fix poor reproductions. The original Hague images were low-resolution renderings, and the examiner rejected them because the lines and features “merge.” The applicant redrew them as clean line drawings, which drew a final rejection for new matter. In the examiner’s words, although the features in the line drawings “are clear, they stray from what was originally disclosed.” The applicant then converted the new-matter features to broken lines after final, citing In re Zahn for the point that disclaimed features cannot be new matter. The examiner accepted that the new-matter issue was resolved, but the conversion left solid and broken lines that disagreed between views, so the amendment was not entered and the case went abandoned. The applicant had also renumbered the Hague views “FIG. 1” through “FIG. 7” even though the restriction requirement warned against it, which cost a round. The lesson is that in a Hague case the reproductions filed with the International Bureau are the only disclosure there will ever be. If they are poor, every later fix risks either new matter or inconsistency.

The cutting insert, Application No. 35/524,716, is the one Hague file that reached allowance. The applicant accepted every suggestion: the recessed top-face geometry went into broken lines, and the long feature statement was cut to the examiner’s single sentence, “a triangular-shaped cutting insert with a centrally located circular hole.” The issue fee of $1,300 was never paid. The file gives no reason, but what was left to protect was essentially a triangle with a hole in it.

3. The Grace Period Nobody Invoked

Three files had a 102 rejection, and in each the reference was either the applicant’s own product or an online video.

In Application No. 29/992,918 (batting mat), filed by P&P Imports LLC, the anticipating reference was the “GoSports Batting Mat” on Amazon, dated by its oldest customer review with a photo, March 18, 2024. The application was filed March 11, 2025, inside the one-year grace period. GoSports is P&P Imports’ own brand. The examiner spelled out the remedy in the action itself, pointing to the 102(b)(1)(A) and (B) exceptions, MPEP 2153.01(a) and MPEP 717.01. A Rule 130(a) declaration showing that the listing was the applicant’s own disclosure would very likely have removed the reference. The 103 rejection in the same action rested on another Amazon listing dated five weeks before filing, which may also have been answerable. No reply was filed. It is the clearest example in the batch of an easily avoided loss.

Application No. 29/984,248 (electronic device) is an Apple continuation that claims priority through a chain going back to April 2008. Apple filed a preliminary amendment replacing the drawings with the original 2008 figures and pressed the examiner to confirm priority under MPEP 1504.20, and the examiner did. The examiner then rejected the claim as anticipated by a January 9, 2007 techpowerup.com article titled “Apple introduces the iPhone at Macworld 2007.” Even with the 2008 date, Apple’s own launch coverage came more than a year before. The action cited AIA 102(a)(1) even though the claim’s 2008 effective filing date points to pre-AIA 102(b), but the result is the same under either statute. Apple did not reply. The 2008 chain did not help against Apple’s own announcement, which came first.

In Application No. 35/524,679 (tour-guide radio receiver) a 2022 YouTube video was held to be substantially the same as the claimed design. The applicant was an individual abroad with no US practitioner shown, and did not reply.

4. Obviousness After LKQ: The Rejections Nobody Tested

Five files had 103 rejections. Only one examiner cited LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations LLC, 102 F.4th 1280 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (en banc), and that use is worth a close look.

In Application No. 29/887,202 (ByteDance GUI) the examiner cited LKQ to hold that Ji (D875,122) was a proper primary reference, then supplied the reason to combine it with Zheng (D941,841) this way: “Both Ji et al. and Zheng are analogous because these references are classified in the same subclass known as Generated Images … Therefore, a designer of ordinary skill would be motivated to combine Ji et al. and Zheng on the simple fact that both references are of the same subclass.” That treats two separate questions, whether a reference is analogous art and why a designer would combine the references, as if they were one. LKQ and the USPTO’s own post-LKQ guidance, which the applicant quoted in its response, treat them separately and require a record-supported reason to modify the primary reference. The applicant argued the point once, lost at final, and did not appeal. The elected design was dropped. The non-elected designs went forward in divisionals, one of which issued as D1,130,469.

The other four went unchallenged:

• In Application No. 35/524,837 (meditation spiral charm) the examiner combined an online bead listing with a WIPO spiral design as a “simple substitution of known design elements,” supported by four more references showing spirals are common. The applicant was pro se and did not reply.
• In Application No. 35/524,679 (radio receiver) the 103 used a single YouTube reference and filled in the views the video did not show with “commonplace” features from two design patents listed as “made of record and not relied upon.” By post-LKQ standards it was thin, with no analogous-art finding and no stated reason to modify.
• In Application No. 29/977,701 (pan lid with star-shaped window) the primary reference was a YouTube video of a star-shaped gift box, and the examiner defined the field broadly as “a lid with a star-shaped element and other simple shaped elements.” That is the post-LKQ field-of-endeavor inquiry in all but name. A gift box is an aggressive choice of analogous art for cookware. The applicant argued the merits once and then expressly abandoned in favor of a continuing application.
• In Application No. 29/992,918 (batting mat) the examiner still used the pre-LKQ In re Harvey and Glavas “so related” formulation, in an action mailed in February 2026.

The same observation as last week holds from the other side of the ledger. The quality of the reasoning to combine varies widely, and applicants who were willing to push on it had room. Most of these applicants were not.

5. Hague Filers and the US Rules

The Hague files show a recurring set of problems that have little to do with the design itself:

• Descriptions written for other offices. Feature lists in the Hague description drew objections as functional or extraneous in Application No. 35/524,516 (slots, buttons and an LED), Application No. 35/525,034 (a matte texture that “influences game play”), Application No. 35/524,837 and Application No. 35/524,716. Examiners cited In re Freeman, 23 App. D.C. 226 (1904), and required the text to be cancelled.
• Screens that are not shown. Application No. 35/524,985 (GUI) was refused under section 171 because the single reproduction showed an image with no display screen. The fix was a broken line around the edge of the interface. It was never filed.
• Broken-line statements. “For illustrative purposes,” common in Hague filings, “has no clear meaning” in the US (Application No. 35/524,774). The examiner supplied substitute language.
• Duplicate designations. Application No. 35/525,845 (animal brush) drew a statutory double patenting rejection over copending 35/525,405, which a terminal disclaimer cannot cure. US counsel expressly abandoned it before the reply period ran out, which is the clean exit. The same file also shows a missing certified copy of the Chinese priority application.
• No one to answer. Every Hague action repeated that a representative before the International Bureau cannot act before the USPTO, and two noted that the examiner cannot place international calls. Several applicants had no US practitioner of record. For a foreign applicant without US counsel, even an easy refusal can go unanswered.

6. Enforcement Watch

For litigators, the most important files here are the three tied to issued patents. An abandoned parent’s history is part of the family record. None of what follows criticizes how these applications were handled; the reasons for letting a case go are rarely in the file. The point is that these records are now public and an accused infringer will read them.

D1,083,474 and its parent. Application No. 29/871,530 (Versuni coffee machine) was allowed, the issue fee was paid, and then the Office withdrew it from issue under 37 CFR 1.313(b) for unpatentability about ten months later. The new action raised only 112 drawing questions: interior features in a single front view, and whether the center of the bottom was flush or recessed. It went unanswered. Allowance, even with the fee paid, is not the end of the road. For enforcement, the more useful material is the restriction requirement that produced the divisional. The examiner defined what counted as a patentably distinct difference: holes or no holes in the top grate and drip tray, controls or no controls, half width with no bean hopper. The examiner also wrote that “the presence or absence of a portafilter is considered de minimis.” Either side of a dispute over D1,083,474 can cite those statements on how much visual difference the Office treated as significant.

D1,130,469 and its parent. In Application No. 29/887,202 the restriction requirement separated the GUI embodiments by the number and position of icons, the icons flanking a line, and the presence or absence of a large square. The applicant did not traverse. Those findings point toward a narrow scope for the issued divisional in what is plainly a crowded field. The examiner also called the icon differences “not significant” and “de minimis” in the obviousness analysis. The prior art applied to the parent (Ji, Zheng and the supporting references) is directly relevant to the validity of the whole family.

The Apple family. In Application No. 29/984,248 an examiner found the January 2007 Macworld coverage “substantially the same” as a broken-line claim drawn from the same 2008 disclosure that supports D1,125,106 (its parent) and siblings D1,126,181 and D1,125,154. Apple did not argue, so there is no argument-based estoppel. But the finding is unrebutted and public, and whether that article was before the examiners of the issued siblings is worth checking.

Three other files bear on family members that have not issued yet:

• In Application No. 29/977,701 (pan lid) the applicant described, on the record, which areas each of its copending family members claims and which it “ghosts.” The examiner, for her part, called differences in the proportions of the nested stars “de minimis” and claiming or disclaiming a small concentric area “minor.” Both sets of statements will matter to the scope of any member that issues.
• In Application No. 35/520,781 (injector) the applicant argued that the original reproductions clearly disclose only the silhouette, the oval button and the LED aperture, and converted the rest to broken lines. Any claim in continuation 30/070,789 that shows the other features in solid lines will face that statement on written description and priority.
• In Application No. 29/886,637 (hockey training device) the examiner found several parent views unclear or inconsistent and warned that “an insufficient drawing may have a negative effect with respect to the effective filing date of a continuing application.” Family members that rely on those views for the parent’s date are exposed.

7. What to Take From the Week

1. Audit Hague reproductions before filing with the International Bureau, as if a US examiner were reading them: consistency across every view, no solid black fill, depth shown by shading or perspective, and clean lines. The reproductions cannot be improved later without new matter risk.
2. Strip functional and feature-list language from the Hague description for US designations, and use a US-style broken-line statement.
3. When the examiner says the design is patentable over the art and offers a broken-line fix, the reply is often a single drawing amendment. Three designs this week were lost at that point.
4. If the reference is the client’s own listing or launch inside the grace period, file the Rule 130 declaration. The examiner may even point the way, as happened here.
5. Test the reason to combine. Shared classification, a “commonplace” feature and “simple substitution” are assertions that a record-supported LKQ analysis may not support, and one argument followed by abandonment leaves them untested.
6. Before letting a parent go, read it the way an accused infringer will read the family: restriction findings, “de minimis” characterizations and statements about what the drawings disclose all stay in the public record.