News & Topics

On November 30, 2011, the Intellectual Property High Court reversed a Board of Appeal’s decision that the claimed design of contact lens is similar to the prior art design disclosed in the cited prior art.
The claimed contact lens design at issue in the design application has three major design portions, i.e., outer peripheral portion, inner peripheral portion, and inner peripheral edge portion.  In particular, the inner peripheral portion and the inner peripheral edge portion have respective radially outwardly and inwardly extending bar-like configurations with different lengths and some of inner and outer bar-like configurations are connected to each other across the inner peripheral portion.

Contrarily, the prior contact lens design is substantially constituted by small dots and the inner and outer mountain-like configurations are spaced a certain distance away from each other.  Also, the innermost edge of the inner peripheral edge portion defines a true circle. 

Taking account of above-differences, the court concluded that the claimed design is not similar to the prior art design.

http://www.courts.go.jp/hanrei/pdf/20111201140318.pdf

CLAIMED DESIGN of the design application
 
PRIOR ART DESIGN disclosed in the cited document