The innovative management of mobile phone design

Abstract

This study took three different class items for research, which were (1) Class I: the patent of iPhone which has been authorized by Apple; (2) Class II: The cell phones which have infringed on the design patent of iPhone after judicial judgements; (3) Class III: the cell phones which intentionally pirated iPhone's features but they have not been accused of infringement by Apple yet. There were 18 samples in total in this study, and the researcher asked 30 ordinary consumers who have no work experience in the filed of designing to do the similarity test. The research results were compared with the infringed cases in reality, and Multi-Dimensional Scale (MDS) was used to build up the real range of patent identified by the ordinary consumers at end of the study. The research results showed if the researcher took Class I to Class II as the real range of patent. Although most present Class III samples did not infringe directly on the patent range of iPhone, the judge confirmed that it is an infringement between Class I and Class II range on judging. Class III presented the distances which were very close to Class I, and therefore the possibility of infringement would be extremely high. The results of the study could build a display system which would help the real range of patent to be presented by visualization. The system could also clearly show whether other people's designs have infringed on the real range of patent of ours or not. It could be an important reference of infringement and overall patent management. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.