Recent USPTO Guidance Makes it Easier to Obtain Design Patent Protection for Digital Interfaces

Companies that develop software, apps, user interfaces, and other digital products should take note of a recent change in USPTO practice. On March 13, 2026, the USPTO issued supplemental guidance for design patent applications directed to computer-generated interfaces and icons. The practical importance of the guidance is that it is now easier to claim and present certain computer-generated icons and interfaces in design patent applications, especially for new technologies that use projected, holographic, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) designs.

As opposed to traditional utility patents that protect the way an invention functions, a design patent protects the ornamental visual appearance of an article of manufacture. In the software context, that can include the appearance of icons, graphical user interfaces, and similar digital design elements. Under the USPTO’s prior guidance, however, a computer icon or GUI generally could not be claimed alone. Instead, it had to be presented as embodied in a display panel, or a portion of a display panel, to satisfy the legal requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 171. For this reason, older applications were often framed as a “display panel with computer icon,” with the screen shown in broken lines even though the screen itself was not part of the ornamental design.

The new USPTO guidance loosens that framework. The USPTO now says that claims such as an “icon for display panel” or a “graphical user interface for a computer” can satisfy the article-of-manufacture requirement without requiring the drawings themselves to depict the display panel, so long as the title and claim properly identify the relevant article of manufacture. In that sense, the change is less a fundamental expansion of design patent law than a meaningful change in drafting and examination practice. Some designs that previously would have been rejected unless presented in the older screen-based format may now proceed in a cleaner and more direct way. This new guidance is most impactful to technologies that did not fit neatly within the older “display panel with icon” model, such as projected, holographic, virtual-reality, and augmented-reality interfaces, where a “display panel” does not necessarily exist.

Separate from design patents, copyright law might also be used to protect graphical user interfaces and computer icons.  However, copyright might not apply to all graphical user interface elements.  For example, familiar symbols, simple geometric shapes, and very simple designs might not meet the minimum requirements for copyright protection. Copyright law similarly has limited application to designs that are primarily functional or where there are only a limited number of ways to convey the concept.  Because graphical user interfaces and icons can sometimes fall outside of copyright protection, design patent protection might apply to certain icons that copyright does not.

Therefore, where the commercial value lies in the distinctive ornamental appearance of an icon, interface, dashboard, overlay, or similar digital design, a design patent may provide meaningful and cost-effective protection even where copyright protection is uncertain or relatively thin. In many cases, the best strategy is to evaluate all avenues of protection: copyright for code and protectable visual expression, design patents for the ornamental appearance of important digital designs, and utility patents for inventive concepts implemented in software.

Kean Miller LLP

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