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If the Court holds that an article of manufacture could be less than an entire product, which appears likely, the damages available for design patent infringement will be less than previously assumed in many cases. If the Court prescribes a test for what constitutes the relevant article of manufacture, and the test looks to what is claimed in the asserted design patent, companies may adopt a strategy of pursuing numerous design patents for a single product. Much like Apple has historically done, companies could pursue design patents directed to parts of a product, and also pursue design patents directed to the entire product.

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