The Patent Act confers upon patentees exclusive rights for the purpose of fostering technological innovation and advancement. In order to safeguard the public’s incentive and opportunity to further develop existing technologies, the Act expressly stipulates novelty as an essential prerequisite for the grant of design patent rights. Accordingly, the design subject to a patent application must be unprecedented and not identical or substantially similar to any element of the prior art, thereby ensuring the sustained progress of technological development.

This article undertakes a comparative analysis of the standards for determining novelty in design patents in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. Through the examination of selected judicial precedents and case studies, it seeks to elucidat

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