Our client, Procter & Gamble obtained rights to a promising product known as "Dr. John's" portable electric toothbrush - U.S. Pat. No. 6,189,693. The client redesigned and repackaged the portable, electric toothbrush as the Crest® SpinBrush™. The original design owner had not fully protected its design with design patents, obtaining only U.S. Pat. No. D432,312. When the client took over the IP portfolio, there were a number of still pending utility patent applications covering Dr. John's product. Claiming priority to an earlier-filed, still pending utility application was essential in order to avoid statutory bar problems. We were assigned the task of spinning off a divisional design patent application from a pending utility patent application, with the goal of obtaining broader design patent protection. We were successfully able to obtain a series of divisional design patents, all granted under the PTO's "rocket docket" expedited application procedure, covering various unique bristle configurations in the head of the SpinBrush™. These design patents have been very effective in slowing down competitive electric toothbrush designs.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,189,693
U.S. Pat. No. 6,360,395
U.S. Pat. No. D432,312
U.S. Pat. No. D458,455
U.S. Pat. No. D456,998
U.S. Pat. No. D457,728
U.S. Pat. No. D458,030

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