Opinion ID: 2801691
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Registered ’983 Trade Dress

Text: In contrast to the unregistered trade dress, the ’983 trade dress is a federally registered trademark. The federal trademark registration provides “prima facie evidence” of non-functionality. Tie Tech, 296 F.3d at 78283. This presumption “shift[s] the burden of production to the defendant . . . to provide evidence of functionality.” Id. at 783. Once this presumption is overcome, the regisAPPLE INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 15 tration loses its legal significance on the issue of functionality. Id. (“In the face of sufficient and undisputed facts demonstrating functionality, . . . the registration loses its evidentiary significance.”). The ’983 trade dress claims the design details in each of the sixteen icons on the iPhone’s home screen framed by the iPhone’s rounded-rectangular shape with silver edges and a black background: The first icon depicts the letters “SMS” in green inside a white speech bubble on a green back- ground; ... the seventh icon depicts a map with yellow and orange roads, a pin with a red head, and a red- and-blue road sign with the numeral “280” in white; ... the sixteenth icon depicts the distinctive configuration of applicant’s media player device in white over an orange background. ’983 trade dress (omitting thirteen other icon design details for brevity). It is clear that individual elements claimed by the ’983 trade dress are functional. For example, there is no dispute that the claimed details such as “the seventh icon depicts a map with yellow and orange roads, a pin with a red head, and a red-and-blue road sign with the numeral ‘280’ in white” are functional. See id. Apple’s user interface expert testified on how icon designs promote usability. This expert agreed that “the whole point of an icon on a smartphone is to communicate to the consumer using that product, that if they hit that icon, certain functionality will occur on the phone.” J.A. 41458-59. The expert further explained that icons are “[v]isual shorthand for 16 APPLE INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. something” and that “rectangular containers” for icons provide “more real estate” to accommodate the icon design. J.A. 41459, 41476. Apple rebuts none of this evidence. Apple contends instead that Samsung improperly disaggregates the ’983 trade dress into individual elements to argue functionality. But Apple fails to explain how the total combination of the sixteen icon designs in the context of iPhone’s screen-dominated rounded-rectangular shape—all part of the iPhone’s “easy to use” design theme—somehow negates the undisputed usability function of the individual elements. See J.A. 40722-23. Apple’s own brief even relies on its expert’s testimony about the “instant recognizability due to highly intuitive icon usage” on “the home screen of the iPhone.” J.A. 41484; Appellee’s Br. 43, 70, 71 (quoting J.A. 41484). Apple’s expert was discussing an analysis of the iPhone’s overall combination of icon designs that allowed a user to recognize quickly particular applications to use. J.A. 41484, 25487. The iPhone’s usability advantage from the combination of its icon designs shows that the ’983 trade dress viewed as a whole “is nothing other than the assemblage of functional parts . . . .” See Tie Tech, 296 F.3d at 786 (quoting Leatherman, 199 F.3d at 1013). There is no “separate ‘overall appearance’ which is non-functional.” Id. (quoting Leatherman, 199 F.3d at 1013). The undisputed facts thus demonstrate the functionality of the ’983 trade dress. “In the face of sufficient and undisputed facts demonstrating functionality, as in our case, the registration loses its evidentiary significance.” See id. at 783. The burden thus shifts back to Apple. See id. But Apple offers no analysis of the icon designs claimed by the ’983 trade dress. Rather, Apple argues generically for its two trade dresses without distinction under the Disc Golf factors. Among Apple’s lengthy citations to the record, we can find only two pieces of information that involve icon designs. One is Apple’s user interface expert discussing APPLE INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 17 other possible icon designs. The other is a citation to a print iPhone advertisement that included the icon designs claimed in the ’983 trade dress. These two citations, viewed in the most favorable light to Apple, would be relevant to only two of the Disc Golf factors: “alternative design” and “advertising.” But the cited evidence suffers from the same defects as discussed in subsections I.A.2 and I.A.3. Specifically, the expert’s discussion of other icon design possibilities does not show that the other design possibilities “offer[ed] exactly the same features” as the ’983 trade dress. See Tie Tech, 296 F.3d at 786 (quoting Leatherman, 199 F.3d at 1013-14). The print iPhone advertisement also fails to establish that, on the substance, it was not touting the utilitarian advantage of the ’983 trade dress. The evidence cited by Apple therefore does not show the non-functionality of the ’983 trade dress. In sum, the undisputed evidence shows the functionality of the registered ’983 trade dress and shifts the burden of proving non-functionality back to Apple. Apple, however, has failed to show that there was substantial evidence in the record to support a jury finding in favor of non-functionality for the ’983 trade dress on any of the Disc Golf factors. We therefore reverse the district court’s denial of Samsung’s motion for judgment as a matter of law that the ’983 trade dress is functional and therefore not protectable. Because we conclude that the jury’s findings of nonfunctionality of the asserted trade dresses were not supported by substantial evidence, we do not reach Samsung’s arguments on the fame and likely dilution of the asserted trade dresses, the Patent Clause of the Constitution, or the dilution damages. 18 APPLE INC. v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.