Patents on the soles of your shoes...: October 2025

Sunday, October 26, 2025

Oh, patents! Dolce and Gabbana handbag lock

On April 5th, 2016, the US design patent USD752950S1, titled Decorative element for a bag was awarded to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

The patent Figure 1 is included below, together with a marketed embodiment of the decorative lock. The Figure 1 shows a front perspective of the patented design. The marketed embodiment of the Dolce & Gabbana lock features a black enameled flower that matches the black leather bag with which the lock cooperates.

Reference
Dolce and Gabbana (website)
https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/

Friday, October 24, 2025

Oh, patents! Dolce and Gabbana Sicily handbag

The enduring Dolce & Gabbana Sicily handbag is a patented design. The US design patent USD609004S1, titled Handbag was awarded to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, on February 2nd, 2010.

The patent Figure 1 is included below, together with a marketed embodiment of the Sicily handbag. The marketed embodiment of the Dolce & Gabbana Sicily handbag shown is a size small, top-handle bag, in green leather.

Reference
Dolce and Gabbana (website)
https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/

Monday, October 20, 2025

Oh, patents! Dolce and Gabbana finger ring

On April 3rd, 2018, the US design patent USD814331S1, titled Finger ring, was awarded to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. The patent Figure 1 is included below, together with a marketed embodiment of the finger ring. The marketed embodiment of the Dolce & Gabbana finger ring comprises multicolor sapphires, 18k yellow gold, and a filigree design below the mounted gems, also shown in the patent Figure.

Reference

Dolce and Gabbana (website)

https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/

Monday, October 13, 2025

Oh, patents! Dolce & Gabbana K perfume bottle

The Dolce & Gabbana K perfume bottle is a patented design. The US design patent, USD876238S1, titled Bottle, was awarded to Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana, on February 25th, 2020.

Below, the patent Figure 1.2 depicts a front view of the K perfume bottle. An image of the marketed bottle, together with its conditioning, is included beneath the patent Figure 1.2.

The Dolce & Gabbana K perfume for men has a younger counterpart, the Dolce and Gabbana Q perfume for women. Created by DMS-Firmenich Daphné Bugey, Principal Perfumer, and Nathalie Lorson, Master Perfumer, the Dolce and Gabbana K perfume was launched in 2019. The Dolce and Gabbana K perfume is a woody aromatic fragrance with Juniper berries and citrus top notes, pimento, lavender, sage and geranium middle notes, vetiver, cedar and patchouli end notes.

References
Daphné Bugey
https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/en/businesses/perfumery-beauty/perfumery/fine-fragrance/people/daphne-bugey.html
Dolce and Gabbana (website)
https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/
DSM Firmenich
https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/en/home.html
Nathalie Lorson
https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/en/businesses/perfumery-beauty/perfumery/fine-fragrance/people/nathalie-lorson.html

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Oh, patents! Dolce & Gabbana Q perfume bottle cap

The Dolce & Gabbana Q perfume bottle cap is a patented design. The US design patent, USD984264S1 , titled Bottle cap, was awarded to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, on April 25th, 2023.

Below, the patent Figure 1.2 depicts a front view of the crown bottle cap, with the interlaced D&G logo on the cap's bottom rim. An image of the marketed perfume bottle and its conditioning is also included beneath the patent Figure 1.2.

The Dolce & Gabbana Q perfume was launched in 2023. The Q perfume was created by Daphné Bugey, Principal Perfumer at DSM-Firmenich, a Dutch-Swiss multinational. The Dolce & Gabbana Q perfume is a fruity aromatic perfume for women, with lemon, orange, and jasmine top notes, cherry and heliotrope middle notes, cedar and musk end notes.

References

Daphné Bugey

https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/en/businesses/perfumery-beauty/perfumery/fine-fragrance/people/daphne-bugey.html
Dolce and Gabbana (website)
https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/
DSM Firmenich (website)
https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/en/home.html

Thursday, October 9, 2025

Oh, patents! D&G - Dolce perfume bottle cap

Dolce & Gabbana (D&G), the famous Italian fashion House, was founded by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, in 1984. The first D&G perfumes – Dolce & Gabbana pour femme (for women) and Dolce & Gabbana pour homme (for men) were launched in the early 90s. Since then, more than 100 D&G perfumes have been created.

The Dolce perfume was first launched in 2014. To date, the Dolce perfume line includes ten different fragrances: the original Dolce (2014), Dolce Floral Drops (2015), Dolce Rosa Excelsa (2016), Dolce Garden (2018), Dolce Peony (2019), Dolce Shine (2020), Dolce Rose (2021), Dolce Lily (2022), Dolce Violet (2023) and Dolce Blue Jasmine (2024). All the Dolce perfume bottles, with their sculpted flower caps, were designed by award-winning bottle designer Suzanne Dalton. The Dolce flower cap is a patented design. The US design patent, USD792767S1, titled Perfume bottle cap, was awarded to Suzanne Dalton, in France, on July 25th, 2017. The patent was then assigned to Dolce & Gabbana, in Milan, Italy.

Below, the patent Figure 8, together with a marketed bottle of the Dolce Garden fragrance*. Notice in the figure drawing that everything below the flower cap is drawn with dotted lines. The dotted lines indicate the parts of the design that are unprotected by the patent. Thus, only the Dolce flower bottle cap is patented.

Notes

*The Dolce Garden fragrance was created by Violaine Collas, senior perfumer at MANE S.A**. Dolce Garden is a fruity-floral perfume for women with magnolia, neroli, and mandarin orange top notes, coconut middle notes, and almond milk and sandalwood end notes.

** MANE S.A. is a major international fragrance and flavor production company, founded in 1871 in France (near Grasse, the perfume industry's capital city).

References

Dolce & Gabbana (website)

https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en-us/

Suzanne Dalton (YouTube) Behind the Bottle: Full Interview with Suzanne Dalton | LIBRE | YSL BEAUTY

https://youtu.be/OSwX9RGxL9s

MANE SA (company website)

https://www.mane.com/

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Unpatented - Gillbert, the Robo-Fish

Winner of the 2022 Natural Robotics Contest, the Robo-Fish named Gillbert, was designed to capture plastic pollution found in waterways, using a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that digests plastic particles to generate energy. In other words, a technology where bacteria breaks down plastic, and a fuel cell converts the energy released into electricity. As a result, the more plastic Gillbert captures, the more energy is generated.

The Natural Robotics Contest was organized by Dr. Robert Siddall, at the University of Surrey (UK), in partnership with the British Ecological Society, and various additional educational institutions and foundations (Siddall et al., 2022). The contest call was for robot ideas that are biomimetic and that do good in the world. In other words, a call for robot ideas that imitate nature. For example, a woodpecker robot that could test the health of trees, or a plant robot that could reinforce a riverbank. As for natural robots doing good in the world, this was understood as an action aligned with the goals to protect nature and to promote biodiversity, set forth at the conclusion of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), held in Montreal, Canada, in 2022.

The contest was also completely crowdsourced, marketed to high schools and college students, mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom, but also open to “anyone” with a bright idea for a robot that “imitates nature and does good”. The grand part of the contest was that the winning entry would actually be prototyped. Prototyping performed by a group of robotic experts and engineers, hailing from such prestigious engineering schools as the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL) or the Technische Universität München (TUM) in Munich, Germany, and the robotics labs at the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom. Finally, from a research standpoint, the investigators hypothesized that the entries would reflect what people cared about most in the environment, as well as the problems they considered most pressing for engineers to solve.

Thus, Gillbert, the 2022 winning entry, submitted by a student named Eleanor Mackintosh, reflected the strong interest for solving ocean pollution, found trending most prominently in the contest entries. Additionally, the Robo-Fish prototype was 3D-printed, so that anyone could get a copy of the Robo-Fish, which also ran on batteries, and thereby multiply Robo-fish goodness in the world.

Gillbert, the name of the fish, would also invoke a significant aspect of the idea, considering that inspiration was drawn from basking sharks. Indeed, basking sharks swim with their massive mouths open to filter tiny zooplankton, krill, and other small organisms from the water. Their mouths have comb-like gill rakers to trap food as water passes through their gills. A passive raking system that enables them to eat a vast amount of food while filtering thousands of gallons of seawater per hour.

Mimicking basking sharks, the Robo-Fish, idea essentially consisted in contaminated water being swallowed by the robot and pushed out, free of plastic particles, through the Robo-Fish gills, covered with mesh filters. Specifically, a filtering system biomimicking basking sharks feeding from zooplankton, krill, and other small organisms caught in their natural gill filtering system.

Below, an image of the winning student entry submitted by Eleanor Mackintosh, and of the prototype put together by robotic experts, interested in Gillbert and the quest to rid oceans of their catastrophic plastic pollution problems. Indeed, by 2050, experts estimate that ocean plastic could exceed fish by weight.

References

Staff (Oct. 20, 2022). Robotics researchers turn the public's ideas into ‘robo-fish’ reality

– University of Surrey, UK.

https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/robotics-researchers-turn-publics-ideas-robo-fish-reality

The Natural Robotics Contest - Call for Entries.

www.naturalroboticscontest.com

Siddall, R., Zufferey, R., Armanini, Sophie., Zhang, Ketao., Sareh, Sina., and Elisavetha Sergeev (Oct. 19, 2022). The Natural Robotics Contest: Crowdsourced Biomimetic Design.

https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1iMKqAykrcCLJfywsCpNSS_QDLspiLXuL&authuser=0&acrobatPromotionSource=gdrive_chrome-native_view

Sunday, October 5, 2025

Oh, patents! Oh, LifeSavers®!

LifeSavers®’ lore is sweet. According to Bellis (2025), the hard candy LifeSavers® were invented in 1912 as a heat-resistant, summer candy, an alternative to chocolate prone to melting. The first flavor was mint (Pep-O-mint). By 1919, six flavors were marketed (Wint-O-Green, Cl-O-ve, Lic-O-Rice, Cinn-O-Mon, Vi-O-Let, and Choc-O-Late). The five-fruit flavor packs (pineapple, lime, orange, cherry, and lemon) came in 1935 with flavor and formula variations to date. Most significantly, because the candies looked like little life preservers, they were called LifeSavers®.

LifeSavers® were initially packaged by hand in cardboard tubes. Tinfoil ply was introduced later to keep the candies fresher. Machinery to package the candies was developed in the 1930s. In 2004, Wrigley acquired the company, introducing a new flavor (Hot Cin-O-Mon) and reintroducing an old mint flavor (Wint-O-Green), among other innovations.

LifeSavers®’ two-ply, foil + wax, laminated packaging is a patented invention. The US utility patent US2926833, titled Life saver package, was awarded on March 1st, 1960, to Harry E. Engleson and Elmer D. Sramek. Specifically, the patent discloses both how the candies are wrapped and an improved way of opening the packages. An improvement for accessing the candies, comprising a strand or thread that is secured inside the wrapper, with a protruding end that the user can pull to tear off the end of the wrapper, thereby enabling access to the candies.

Below, the patent Figures 1 and 4, respectively depict perspective views of the stack of candies in position relative to the wrapper, and the opened package, using the opening strand. An image of an opened LifeSavers® five-flavor pack, currently marketed, is also included beneath the patent Figures 1 and 4.

Specifically, the patent Figure 1 shows a stack 11 of cylindrical candies 10, termed articles in the patent. The bottom of the stack 11 sits below the dotted fold line 22, and the top of the stack is just under the flexible opening strand or filament 19. The opening strand or filament 19, with its protruding end 20, is heat-sealed to the wrapping paper 12. The wrapping paper 12, is made of Rayseal, comprising an inner wax paper wall 18, and an outer aluminum paper wall 17. The flexible wrapping paper 12 has two parallel sides, 14 and 13, and two parallel top and bottom edges, 15 and 16. The top edge 15 will be folded and heat-sealed after the stack is tightly wrapped.

The patent Figure 4 shows the wrapped stack 11, with an outer band of paper 30, used for labeling the product. The top 25 of the wrapped stack 11, is folded, heat-sealed, and torn off, using the protruding end 20 of the opening strand or filament 19.

References

Bellis, M. (May 13. 2025). The History of LifeSavers® Candies.

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-life-savers-candy-4076664

LifeSavors® (official website)

https://www.life-savers.com/