Design patents issued have been increasing steadily every year for the past thirty years. In 2007, Samsung Electronics received over 550 design patents - the most ever issued to a single company in one year. Sony holds the most design patents, and is followed closely by Nike. The following table shows the company awarded the most design patents each year:

Consumer electronics and Asian firms seem to dominate design patent applications, with Nike as the exception in the past two decades. Do these figures mean anything other than the fact that these companies like to patent their designs? Or does Samsung's sudden leap to the top over Sony's long held lead mean a shift of some sort with implications for the global design industry? What do you think?

Via Patently O, patent law blog