Soufflé Portion Cups—A brief
When it comes to design and intellectual property…ideas, initial systems and engineering specs may change as the timeline and vision of the project progresses. Modifications may come in, change requests could be a dime a dozen, features could be approved or rejected. Given that all stages of design process are accepted and feature sets are allowed, IP will then notarize the work effort to ensure ownership is traced. However, throughout the IP supply chain we have seen all kinds of products, feature sets and designs where improvements and modifications exist after the fact rather then in it’s initial development stage.
Individuals and product users find ways to improve or “better use” original products made by others. The question may come up in some scenarios is, did the original designers of the invention already account for the alternative method or modification seen…or were they anew after the fact. Sometimes filings account for alternate uses, however they may be devised after the fact.
An example of multifunction IP that may have had only one or a few usability function is the “Soufflé Portion Cup.” We are all familiar with this packaging cup every time we use ketchup at our favorite restaurants. This cup shaped paper made product either enables the restaurant to eliminate plastic ketchup packets or allow’s customers to choose there own ketchup quantity by even having to reduce revisits to request more ketchup packets. When evaluating the construct of the Soufflé Portion Cup, we see a valuable design that facilitates a necessity in food delivery from kitchen to table in convenience, quantity, safety and spill prevention. Specific attributes that show novelty in design are the confounds of space vs size, temporary impermeable material to contain the sauce, structure that conforms to the business use case, as well as, reasonability in resource allocation and cost of manufacturing.
When taking into account all the factors that come together to produce the cup, we can see that novelty exists but one unique factor changes the way the cup may be used and / or adjusted. This alternate use has shown up in post hacks, modifications and tutorials and whether it’s original design accounted for the ability that has risen after the fact would either be in the filing claims or intended as the project originally kicked off—given it was an original design requisite or…maybe it wasn’t.
When looking at the Soufflé Portion Cup…it has connected panels on it’s side that are parallel to one another at each node at the top where such connections are tighten by paper to hold form and shape. Looking at various alternate uses and modifications in videos and tutorials, various users have shown methods where each panel may be pulled apart from one another increasing the radius of the cup thus allowing more space vertically and horizontally to contain ketchup. The unique analysis of this product and it’s plausibly in expansion raises the question:
Where does originality lay?
Did the original design specification account for the secure and sturdy form to contain and carry ketchup where this was achieved by connecting the vertical corner of paper to produce a cup…
Or…did the originator account for the fact that the corner connections offer sturdiness and form, but also provide the option of detachment (roughly 13 in total) to give the user the ability to expand it’s space based on usability preference—was is also meant for open expansion? The reason this analysis is important is because as the IP ownership world may be frustrating and complicated, novelty could exist in alternate forms of the same invention, as such, hacks and modifications could be considered new and novel based off the original design. In similar scenarios novelty becomes tricky in that if the originator did not take in account for the alternative method, the possibility of novelty could exist in the new design, however…given the practicality of the supply chain, materials and design, the alternative may not be as important. Also, this example would only facilitate the originator better as the hack is be applied after manufacturing.