About Perry Saidman
Perry is an acknowledged pioneer in design law, having practiced in the field for over 30 years - he coined the phrase “design law” when starting his practice before anyone else was calling themselves a design lawyer.
Having obtained a master’s degree in electrical engineering, Perry drew upon his extensive experience in utility patent practice in devising analogous strategies in dealing with design patents.
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, such as Avia v. LA Gear where in 1988 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 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.
Today, he is recognized by his peers as a leading expert in the field. He has authored many amicus curiae briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Circuit, including on behalf of Apple in the seminal design patent infringement case of Egyptian Goddess v. Swisa in 2008.
He founded Saidman DesignLaw Group (SDLG) in 1990 which was the first law firm in the country to specialize in design patents. Prior to that, in 1979 Perry was a founding partner of Snider, Sterne & Saidman, which became Saidman, Sterne, Kessler & Goldstein in Washington DC. He was its Managing Partner and headed the Industrial Design Group. After Perry left the firm in 1990 to form SDLG, it was renamed Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox.
At SDLG, he put together a team of skilled specialists and an extensive network of foreign design law experts who developed and implemented cutting-edge design protection strategies for clients.
In 2019, he became Of Counsel to SDLG and also established Perry Saidman, LLC where he focuses on design patent enforcement and litigation. Among his many activities, he also serves as an expert consultant in design patent law, and offers full or half-day design law trainings to corporate and private practitioners.
Perry is a prolific author and speaker. He has given hundreds of presentations to organizations such as the USPTO at its annual Design Day event, the AIPLA, the IPO, INTA, the Japan Design Protection Association, and many state bar associations in their CLE programs (e.g., California, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, New York, and Florida). Among his recent papers are “Design Patent Damages: A Critique of the Government’s Proposed 4-Factor Test for Determining the ‘Article of Manufacture’ ” IP Theory, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University (Vol. 8, Issue 1, Article 3) (2019); “Design Patents Are Sinking in International Seaway: Rethinking Design Patent Anticipation” (February 5, 2020), link 1; and “A Primer on Design Patent Functionality”, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 2022, link.
He was also the founder and first chair of the Industrial Design Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Associations (AIPLA), and was the founder and co-chair of the Design Protection Committee of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). He is today a leading voice in similar committees in the American Bar Association (ABA), Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), and the International Trademark Association (INTA).