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Design Patents and Functional Features: Range of Motion v. Armaid Heads to the Supreme Court. What It Means for Inventor Teams | Autodesk Inventor | Register and Certify Ownership of CAD design

2026-10-29 15:40 News
On 22 October 2026 Chief Justice John Roberts gave Range of Motion Products until 21 December 2026 to ask the US Supreme Court to hear its design patent case against Armaid Company. The company lost at the Federal Circuit after the courts decided that the arm and base shape of its patented massager was mostly functional, and then found the rival product plainly dissimilar in what was left.
The case, Range of Motion Products v. Armaid, is about a handheld massager, but the question at its heart reaches every company that designs physical products in CAD: when a feature does a job, how much of its shape can a design patent still protect, and who decides that, a judge or a jury? The Supreme Court has not agreed to take the case; the extension only gives more time to ask. Still, four Federal Circuit judges publicly disagreed with their court's refusal to rehear it.
For Inventor teams the lesson does not depend on the Supreme Court. The courts used a related utility patent and the owner's own marketing to decide which parts of the shape were functional: records your team creates every day, next to the models and design studies that show which shapes you chose and why.
TL;DR: function can shrink a design patent, and your own documents decide how much

In February 2026 the Federal Circuit affirmed that Armaid's Armaid2 massager does not infringe Range of Motion's design patent D802,155, after treating the arm and base configuration as functional. In August 2026 the court refused to rehear the case, over a dissent by Chief Judge Moore. On 22 October 2026 the Supreme Court extended the deadline for a petition to 21 December 2026. The law has not changed yet. For Inventor teams: claim the parts of a look that are really a choice, keep dated records of the alternatives you modelled, and do not let patents or marketing call every curve a technical necessity.

What happened at the Supreme Court on 22 October?

According to the Supreme Court docket for application 26A564, Range of Motion asked on 19 October 2026 for more time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, moving the deadline from 9 November to 21 December 2026. The application was docketed on 22 October and granted by the Chief Justice the same day. Range of Motion is represented by E. Joshua Rosenkranz of the law firm Orrick.
Patent law commentator Dennis Crouch reported on Patently-O on 28 October 2026 that the petition is expected to raise two questions. The first is whether the Federal Circuit's "plainly dissimilar" shortcut conflicts with the test the Supreme Court set in 1871 in Gorham v. White, which asks whether an ordinary observer would see the two designs as substantially the same. The second is whether judges may settle factual disputes about which design features are functional as part of claim construction, or whether those disputes belong to a jury.
An extension is routine and says nothing about whether the Court will hear the case; the justices grant only a small share of petitions. If the petition is filed by 21 December, the decision on whether to take it would come in 2027.

What did the Federal Circuit decide?

Range of Motion owns US design patent D802,155 for the ornamental design of a body massaging apparatus, the look of its handheld massager. It sued Armaid Company over the Armaid2, a handheld device with opposing arms and rollers that press on the body. The District of Maine granted summary judgment of non-infringement, which means the case ended without a jury.
On 2 February 2026 a divided panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed in a precedential opinion in case 23-2427. Judge Cunningham wrote for herself and Judge Hughes. Chief Judge Moore dissented. The reasoning had two steps:
  • Step 1: filter out function. The courts treated the configuration of the arms and the base, the clamshell geometry that makes the device work, as primarily functional. Evidence for that came from a related utility patent and from the patent owner's own statements and marketing about how the product works. The panel rejected the argument that the patent drawings alone, with those features shown in solid lines, proved they were ornamental.
  • Step 2: compare what is left. Once the functional geometry was set aside, the remaining ornamental features were secondary details such as contour, proportion and surface. Compared on those details, the Armaid2 was plainly dissimilar, so no reasonable jury could find infringement.
Chief Judge Moore dissented: the court leaned too hard on removing functional features at summary judgment, and a reasonable jury could have found the products substantially similar overall.

Why did four judges want a rehearing?

On 11 August 2026 the Federal Circuit denied rehearing by the panel and by the full court. Judge Cunningham, joined by Judge Hughes, wrote a concurrence. Chief Judge Moore, joined by Judge Reyna, wrote a dissent, and Judges Stoll and Stark dissented without writing. Judge Newman did not take part.
  • The dissent: the ordinary observer question belongs to the jury. Whether a feature is functional often depends on evidence outside the patent, such as alternative designs, utility patents, marketing and testimony, so it should not be settled by a judge as a pure question of law. A shortcut meant for obvious cases, the dissent argued, now takes closer cases away from juries.
  • The concurrence: "plainly dissimilar" is not a separate test, only a label for cases where no reasonable jury could find infringement. Separating ornamental from functional features is part of construing the claim, which is the judge's job. And this case is a poor vehicle, because the district court also compared both designs with the prior art and reached the same result.
This matters because cases end earlier and cheaper when a judge decides them on paper. If the Supreme Court sided with the dissent, more disputes would go to juries: longer, costlier trials, but more chances for a design owner to win when two products share an overall look.

What does "functional" mean for a design patent?

A design patent protects how a product looks, not how it works. US design patents last 15 years from grant for applications filed since May 2015. Utility patents protect how something works. When a shape is there because the product needs it to work, the law does not let a design patent turn that function into a monopoly on appearance.
So the scope of a design patent is not simply everything drawn in solid lines. A court can give functional parts little or no weight. What remains is the part of the look that was a real choice: proportions, transitions, surface treatment, a handle shape where many shapes would work.
Europe uses a similar idea. Under the EU design regulation, in force in its reformed version since 1 May 2025, a registered EU design does not protect features of appearance that are solely dictated by technical function. The wording and the tests differ from US law, but the message for engineers is the same: protection follows design freedom.
QuestionWhat the courts did in Range of MotionWhat it means for your product
Are solid lines in the drawings enough?No. Functionality was assessed despite solid linesChoose solid and broken lines with care, and expect a functionality fight anyway
What evidence decides function?A related utility patent and the owner's own marketing and statementsYour patents, brochures, datasheets and videos can shrink your design patent
Do alternative designs settle it?Not on their ownKeep them anyway: they are the main evidence that a shape was a choice
Who decided?The judge, as part of claim construction, at summary judgmentEarly, cheaper rulings, unless the Supreme Court changes the rule
What was compared in the end?Remaining ornamental details: contour, proportion, surfaceSeveral narrower design patents can cover more of a product's look than one
Is this final?Rehearing denied 11 Aug 2026; petition due 21 Dec 2026No change in law today; review your filings and records now

Why should Inventor teams care?

Most products designed in Inventor are mechanical: housings, handles, enclosures, tools and consumer products with moving parts, where almost every surface does something. That makes functionality central whenever a design patent is filed or enforced.
  • If you own design patents: the value of each patent depends on how much of the drawn shape survives the functionality filter. A patent drawn around a mechanism may protect much less than the drawings suggest.
  • If you are accused of infringing: the case shows a route to an early win: show the functional geometry with the owner's own patents and marketing, then compare what is left.
  • If you design for clients: the client usually files the patent, but your CAD history, sketches and design studies are the evidence of which choices were aesthetic. Our guides to establishing ownership when hiring freelance designers and protecting CAD designs before patenting cover the contract side.
  • If you compete in a crowded market: the August concurrence pointed to the comparison with prior art as an alternative basis. Dated records of what you designed, and when, help in both directions.
Dated proof of every design choice.

BORIS for Autodesk Inventor registers your CAD files from inside Inventor and gives each registered version a blockchain timestamp and a certificate of ownership, so you can show which shapes existed, and when.

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Which records decide what is functional?

The evidence that shaped this case is the evidence product companies produce anyway. The dissent listed alternative designs, utility patents, marketing materials and testimony. For an Inventor team, that maps to concrete files:
  • Design studies. Alternative shapes modelled for the same mechanism, as dated files or model states. They show a shape was one option among several.
  • Engineering reasoning. Notes, sketches and review comments that say why a surface has its shape: strength, stiffness, ergonomics, moulding, or simply looks.
  • Utility patents. Claims that explain how the shape makes the product work. Courts read them when deciding function.
  • Marketing. Product pages, datasheets and videos that credit the shape for performance. A sentence that credits the curved arms for deeper pressure can later be read as proof that the curve is functional.
  • Revision history. Vault revisions and released drawings show when a look was fixed and who signed it off. See how to manage CAD file revisions across teams.
None of this guarantees a result, and here alternative designs alone did not settle it. But a team with no alternatives to show, or whose marketing calls every curve a technical feature, starts weak. Our articles on how to prove design ownership in legal disputes and the burden of proof in IP infringement cases explain how evidence is weighed.

What should Inventor teams do now?

  1. List your design patents and the products they cover. For each one, mark which drawn features are driven by function and which are free choices.
  2. Talk to your patent attorney about claim scope. Consider broken lines for functional parts and separate design applications for the distinctive elements, such as a handle, a cover or a transition.
  3. Keep the alternatives. Save the shapes you try as separate, dated files or model states instead of overwriting them.
  4. Record why a shape was chosen. Add short notes in design reviews and in iProperties or Vault comments: functional reason, cosmetic choice, or both.
  5. Align patents and marketing. Have engineering, counsel and marketing read each other's texts before launch, so nobody claims the whole look as function.
  6. Check competitors' design patents. See which parts of their drawings are functional before ruling out a similar mechanism. Our guide to reverse engineering of CAD files covers the limits.
  7. Watch the petition. The deadline is 21 December 2026. A grant would put the design patent infringement test itself before the Supreme Court.
  8. Keep dated proof. Register key design versions so you can show what you designed and when, whatever forum decides the dispute.
For more background, read CAD file copyright vs patent protection, how to establish first-in-right to design IP, how to prove authorship of CAD models and IP protection costs for small design firms. Where a product's value lies in hidden know-how rather than its look, see 3D model files as trade secrets and what the Jingdiao trade secrets case means for Inventor teams.

The bigger picture

This week's news on our sister sites shows the same pattern from other angles: who can prove what, and when, decides who owns the value of a design.
CADChain explains how its CAD data protection technology works across CAD systems, and our article on blockchain timestamps for proving design authorship shows how dated records work in practice.

Conclusion

Range of Motion v. Armaid has not changed the law yet. The Federal Circuit's rule stands: a judge can filter out functional features when construing a design patent and end a case early if what remains looks plainly different. Whether that rule survives depends on a petition due on 21 December 2026 and on whether the Supreme Court wants to hear it. For Inventor teams, the useful part is already clear. The strength of a design patent depends on records: the alternatives you modelled, the reasons you wrote down, and the way your patents and marketing describe the shape. Keep those records, keep them dated, and claim the parts of your product's look that were truly your choice.
Your designs, your proof.

BORIS for Autodesk Inventor gives every registered file a blockchain timestamp and a certificate of ownership, without sending your models to a cloud service.

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FAQ: design patents, functional features and Range of Motion v. Armaid

What did the Supreme Court do on 22 October 2026?

Chief Justice Roberts granted Range of Motion Products' application to extend the deadline for its certiorari petition from 9 November to 21 December 2026 (application 26A564). The Court has not agreed to hear the case.

What did the Federal Circuit decide?

On 2 February 2026 it affirmed summary judgment that Armaid's Armaid2 massager does not infringe design patent D802,155. The courts treated the arm and base configuration as functional and found the remaining ornamental features plainly dissimilar. Rehearing was denied on 11 August 2026.

What questions could the Supreme Court consider?

According to Patently-O, whether the plainly dissimilar shortcut conflicts with the ordinary observer test of Gorham v. White (1871), and whether judges or juries should resolve factual disputes about which design features are functional.

Which evidence did the courts use to find functionality?

A related utility patent and the patent owner's own marketing and statements about how the product works. Solid lines in the patent drawings did not prevent the functionality analysis.

Does this change anything for Inventor users today?

The law is unchanged, but the case shows how claim scope is decided. Keep dated alternative designs, record why shapes were chosen, and align utility patents and marketing with your design patent strategy.

How does BORIS help?

BORIS for Autodesk Inventor registers CAD files with a blockchain timestamp from inside Inventor. Each registered version gets a dated certificate of ownership, so you can show which designs and alternatives existed, and when. It does not replace a patent or legal advice.