The Seventh Circuit recently considered the line that is drawn between what patent law protects and what trademark law protects. The patent system seeks to encourage innovation by granting inventors a monopoly for a limited time, while trademark law, and specifically trade dress law, seek to protect consumers, and promote competition, by allowing them to associate a product design with a particular source. But where the trade dress is functional, the court recognized, it is ineligible for trade dress protection. Otherwise, it said, competition “would be unduly stifled,” since trade dress protection “can be renewed in perpetuity.”
