Although many people use design patents for covering products or parts of products, design patents are also used to cover the exterior of a building. Design patents offer architects another tool for protecting their craft as seen in Design Patent D955,603 BUILDING which includes non planar quadrilateral sections forming a building exterior.
Many times architects and building engineers are not considering that they are creating patentable inventions. In addition to, considering building designs as sculptural works, additional use of design patents may protect the architectural design for 15 years.
