Importance of Design Patents in the Recent Apple-Samsung Litigation.

An interesting article at Forbes yesterday, on the increasing importance of design patents for technology companies.  Highly suggested read.

They Invented What? (No. 218)

U.S. Patent No. 6,161,223: Pants separable at crotch for style mixing.

I claim:

1. A pair of outerwear pants having front and back sides and a crotch, the pants separable into right and left leg portions by a releasable closure system defining a seam spanning from the front to back sides of the pants through the crotch, the closure system having left and right portions, each left leg portion having the left half of the closure system, and each right leg portion having the right half of the closure system, each leg portion selected from a set of one-piece left and right leg portions having a variety of visual effects, whereby a user can flexibly create a custom style for a given wearing of the pants.