About Perry Saidman
Perry coined the phrase “design law” when starting his design patent practice before anyone else was calling themselves a design lawyer.
Having obtained a master’s degree in electrical engineering, Perry drew upon his many previous years of experience in utility patent matters when devising analogous strategies to deal with design patent issues.
In addition to having prepared and prosecuted thousands of design patents, he has successfully represented clients in ground-breaking cases that have established the enforceability of design patents in court. The first and most famous of such cases was Avia v. LA Gear where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1988 affirmed a summary judgment holding that two design patents were valid and willfully infringed, entitling the design patent owner to increased damages and attorney fees. Thus began the slow and steady climb in the popularity of obtaining design patents as a core component of a company’s IP strategy, culminating perhaps in the landmark Apple v. Samsung litigation involving a 2012 jury award of over $1 billion based on Samsung’s infringement of three of Apple’s design patents covering its iconic iPhone. Perry penned an amicus curiae brief on behalf of several corporate design patent rights holders when the case reached the Supreme Court four years later on the issue of total profit damages under 35 U.S.C. 289.