DESIGN

9 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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DESIGNAuthored
The Law Mind • 1298 words
Definition
DESIGN carries two distinct legal meanings that operate in entirely separate doctrinal contexts. Researchers must identify which sense is operative before navigating sources. 1. Evidentiary sense. Purpose or intention combined with a plan — that is, not mere momentary impulse, but a formed mental scheme directed toward a result. In criminal law and tort, evidence of design is introduced to show that an act was deliberate and premeditated rather than accidental. The combination of intent and plan distinguishes design from bare motive or general disposition. 2. Intellectual property / art sense. The giving of visible form to a conception of the mind — in other words, the product of invention rendered perceptible. In patent law this meaning anchors the design patent, which protects the ornamental or aesthetic appearance of a functional article as distinct from its utility. In copyright, design applies to graphic, pictorial, and sculptural works. In trade dress, design encompasses the overall visual impression of a product or its packaging that serves as a source identifier. These two meanings rarely appear together in the same legal analysis and should not be conflated.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A specification or plan for an artifact, building, or system; a pattern or composition in art or architecture; intention or plot. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To draw preliminary outlines or features; to mark out, designate, or appoint; to create a work of art; also, purpose or scheme. The common language captures both the planning sense and the artistic sense, which tracks the legal vocabulary more closely than usual. The critical gap is in the evidentiary sense: ordinary usage treats "design" as essentially synonymous with "plan" without the deliberateness element that law requires. In legal evidence, design implies the plan has been formed with purposeful intent toward a specific outcome — a threshold that mere planning language does not satisfy. A researcher reading "design" in a criminal jury instruction or an evidence treatise should not assume the word carries its everyday weight.
Common Confusion
Design vs. intent vs. motive. These three terms overlap in criminal law sources and are often loosely interchanged in older opinions. Motive is the reason why a person acts; intent is the mental state at the moment of the act; design adds the element of advance planning that links intent to a formed scheme. Evidence admitted to show design in a criminal trial serves a distinct purpose from evidence of motive, and courts treat them differently under rules governing character and prior-acts evidence. Burrill's treatment specifically ties design to the combination of purpose and plan — neither alone suffices. Design patent vs. utility patent. A design patent protects how an article looks; a utility patent protects how it works. The two are not interchangeable, and the doctrine governing each — novelty standards, claim drafting, infringement analysis — differs substantially. Historical sources often use "patent" without specifying type; pre-20th-century dictionary entries are particularly prone to conflation.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Design patent. Protects the novel, ornamental appearance of a manufactured article. Distinguished from utility patents by subject matter and claim structure. Design defect. In products liability, a flaw inherent in the product's conception or specifications — as opposed to a manufacturing defect in a particular unit or a failure to warn. Subject to either a consumer-expectations test or a risk-utility test depending on jurisdiction. Design-build. A project delivery method in which a single contracting entity holds responsibility for both the design and construction phases of a project, collapsing what design-bid-build separates into two distinct contractual relationships. Trade dress / product design. The visual appearance of a product or its packaging that may be protected under trademark law if it is distinctive and non-functional.
Why It Matters in Research
Navigating the two cores. Because design operates independently in evidence law and in intellectual property, a researcher who does not isolate the doctrinal context first will retrieve irrelevant material. Full-text searches for "design" in a corpus generate hits across both domains — and also across construction law, administrative law (agency design), and constitutional law — without discrimination. Use the surrounding doctrinal vocabulary to anchor the search before expanding it. The evidentiary sense in historical sources. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century treatises and opinions make heavy use of "design" as an evidentiary concept in criminal cases — proof of system, plan, or scheme. This usage has partially receded in modern practice, where "intent," "purpose," and "plan" have displaced it. Researchers reading older homicide or fraud opinions should recognize that "design" in that context carries the technical Burrill meaning, not the IP meaning. Design defect evolution. The products liability design-defect doctrine is almost entirely a post-1960s development. No historical law dictionary entry will be useful for understanding the risk-utility test or reasonable alternative design requirement. Those doctrines must be traced through modern treatises, Restatement sources, and case law. The absence of this meaning from all five source dictionaries is itself informative. Design-build contracts. The design-build project delivery structure generates disputes that implicate both construction law and professional liability for architects and engineers. The contractual consolidation of design and construction responsibilities shifts traditional risk allocations and affects how indemnity and warranty clauses operate. Historical dictionary sources are silent on this meaning. Terminological compression in IP. Patent claims in design patents are almost entirely visual — the claim is the drawing. Researchers unfamiliar with design patent practice should consult specialized IP sources rather than relying on general legal dictionary definitions, which are too compressed to support claim interpretation work.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Burrill agree on the evidentiary definition and are consistent: design is purpose or intention combined with a plan, with Burrill providing the more developed analytical treatment in his Circumstantial Evidence. Both editions of Black's also carry the IP definition drawn from Binns v. Woodruff, identifying design as "the giving of a visible form to the conceptions of the mind, or invention." Bouvier reproduces the same Binns quotation, indicating this formulation was standard across the dictionaries of the era. Anderson's entry reproduced in the source material addresses desertion rather than design and appears to be a retrieval artifact; it contributes nothing to this entry. What the historical dictionaries miss entirely: the products liability design-defect doctrine, design-build contracting, trade dress protection for product design, and the modern statutory design patent framework. The Binns formulation for the IP sense is accurate as a historical baseline but insufficient for modern design patent analysis, which has developed a distinct body of doctrine around claim scope, the ordinary observer test for infringement, and the role of prior art. Researchers should treat the historical dictionary definitions as entry points, not endpoints.
Jurisdictional Note
Design defect doctrine varies significantly by jurisdiction. Some states apply the consumer-expectations test, others the risk-utility test, and several apply a hybrid approach. The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability adopts the risk-utility / reasonable alternative design standard, but adoption across states is uneven. Design patent law is exclusively federal. Design-build contract law is primarily governed by state contract and construction law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Products Liability — Design Defects (Risk-Utility Test and Reasonable Alternative Design), The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia Project Delivery Methods — Design-Bid-Build, Design-Build, CM at Risk, and Integrated Project Delivery, The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia
Related Terms
Intent — Motive — Plan — Scheme — Design patent — Utility patent — Design defect — Manufacturing defect — Failure to warn — Trade dress — Ornamental — Products liability — Risk-utility test — Reasonable alternative design — Design-build — Copyright — Intellectual property
DESIGNmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
In the law of evidence. Pur- pose or intention, combined with plan, or im- plying a plan in the mind. Burrill, Circ. Ev. 331. As a term of art, the giving of a visible form to the conceptions of the mind, or in- vention. 4 Wash. C. C. 48. Designatio justiciariorum est a rege; jurisdictio vero ordinaria a lege. 4 Inst. 74. The appointment of justices is by the king, but their ordinary jurisdiction by the law.
DESIGNmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
As a term of art, "the giv- ing of a visible form to the conceptions of the mind, or in other words to the inven- tion." 4 Wash. C. C. 48. See COPYRIGHT;
DESIGNmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
of a single duty only, but a cessation of cohabitation, a refusal to live together, which involves an abrogation of all the duties resulting from the marriage contract.1 See ABANDON, 2 (1); NECESSARIES, 1. 2. By a sailor or seaman – an unauthorized leaving or absence from the ship with an intention not to return to her service.2 A quitting of the ship and her service, not only without leave and against the duty of the party, but with an intent not again to return to the ship's duty.3 3. By a soldier - absence and an intention not to return to the service.4 A minor, over eighteen and under twenty-one, who enlists in the army without the consent of his parent or guardian can commit the offense, and the military tribunals may try him therefor.5 4. Of property, see ABANDON, 1; DERELICTION, 3. 1. Aim, intent, purpose; obtention as a purchaser of the articles, for the purject, end in view. In an indictment for having in one's possession materials for counterfeiting, may refer to the purpose for which the materials were originally designed, and not to criminal intent in the defendant to use them." See INTENT; MALICE; WILL, 1. poses for which they were intended and purchased, would usually give. There may be an infringement of a patented design without taking the whole of it, but in such cases the part taken must be a part covered by the patent.2 Design patents stand on as high a plane as utility 2. Giving a visible form to a conception of patents, and require as high a degree of the inventive the mind, to an invention.8 The acts of Congress which authorize patents for designs were intended to give encouragement to the decorative arts. They contemplate not so much utility as appearance. It is a new and original design for a manufacture, whether of metal or other material; a new and original design for a bust, statue, bas relief, or composition in alto or basso relievo; a new or original impression or ornament to be placed on any article of manufacture; a new and original design for the printing of woolen, silk, cotton, or other fabric; a new and useful pattern, print, or picture, to be either worked into, or on, any article of manufacture; or a new and original shape or configuration of any article of manufacture, - one or all of these the law has in view. And the thing invented or produced, for which Southwick v. Southwick, 97 Mass. 328 (1867), Bigelow, C. J.; Magrath v. Magrath, 103 id. 579 (1870). Coffin v. Jenkins, 3 Story, 113 (1844), Story, J. • Cloutman v. Tunison, 1 Sumn. 375 (1833), Story, J.; The Mary Conery, 9 F. R. 223 (1881); 3 Kent, 155. Hanson v. South Scituate, 115 Mass. 343 (1874). • Re Zimmerman, 30 F. R. 176 (1887). • Nichols v. Allen, 130 Mass. 218 (1881), cases, Gray, Chief Justice. Commonwealth v. Morse, 2 Mass. *131 (1806). • [Binns v. Woodruff, 4 Wash. 52 (1821), Washington, J. or originative faculty. In patentable designs a person cannot be permitted to select an existing form, and simply put it to a new use, any more than he can be permitted to take a patent for a mere double use of a machine; but the selection and adaptation of an existing form may amount to a patentable design, as the adaptation of an existing mechanical device may amount to a patentable invention. See PAINTING; PATENT, 2. An act of Congress approved February 4, 1887 (24 St. L. 387), provides That hereafter, during the term of letters patent for a design, it shall be unlawful for any person other than the owner of said letters patent, without the license of such owner, to apply the design secured by such letters patent, or any colorable imitation thereof, to any article of manufacture for the purpose of sale, or to sell or expose for sale any article of manufacture to which such design or colorable imitation shall, without the license of the owner, have been applied, knowing that the same has been so 1 Gorham Company v. White, 14 Wall. 524-28 (1871), cases, Strong J.: Act 29 Aug. 1842; 5 St. L. 543. See Acts 8 July, 1870, and 18 June, 1874: R. S. §§ 4920-33. 2 Dryfoos v. Friedman, 18 F. R. 825 (1884), Wheeler, J. 3 Western Electric Manuf. Co. v. Odell, 18 F. R. 321 (1883), Blodgett, J. For the rule as to damages for infringement, see Dobson v. Hartford Carpet Co., 114 U. S. 439, 445 (1885), cases, Blatchford, J.; Dobson v. Dornan, 118 id. 10, 17 (1886).
DESIGNv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To draw preliminary outline or main features of; to sketch for a pattern or model; to delineate; to trace out; to draw. Dryden. To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint. We shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry. Shak. Meet me to-morrow where the master And this fraternity shall design. Beau. & Fl. To create or produce, as a work of art; to form a plan or scheme of; to form in idea; to invent; to project; to lay out in the mind; as, a man designs an essay, a poem, a statue, or a cathedral. To intend or purpose; -- usually with for before the remote object, but sometimes with to. Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed. Burke. He was designed to the study of the law. Dryden.
DESIGNv.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
To form a design or designs; to plan. Design for, to intend to go to. [Obs.] "From this city she designed for Collin [Cologne]." Evelyn.
DESIGNn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A preliminary sketch; an outline or pattern of the main features of something to be executed, as of a picture, a building, or a decoration; a delineation; a plan. A plan or scheme formed in the mind of something to be done; preliminary conception; idea intended to be expressed in a visible form or carried into action; intention; purpose; -- often used in a bad sense for evil intention or purpose; scheme; plot. The vast design and purposTennyson. The leaders of that assembly who withstood the designs of a besotted woman. Hallam. A . . . settled design upon another man's life. Locke. How little he could guess the secret designs of the court! Macaulay. Specifically, intention or purpose as revealed or inferred from the adaptation of means to an end; as, the argument from design. The realization of an inventive or decorative plan; esp., a work of decorative art considered as a new creation; conception or plan shown in completed work; as, this carved panel is a fine design, or of a fine design. The invention and conduct of the subject; the disposition of every part, and the general order of the whole. Arts of design, those into which the designing of artistic forms and figures enters as a principal part, as architecture, painting, engraving, sculpture. -- School of design, one in which are taught the invention and delineation of artistic or decorative figures, patterns, and the like.
designnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A specification of an object or process, referring to requirements to be satisfied and thus conditions to be met for them to solve a problem. | A plan (with more or less detail) for the structure and functions of an artifact, building or system. | A pattern, as an element of a work of art or architecture. | The composition of a work of art. | Intention or plot. | Intention or plot. | Malicious or malevolent intention. | The shape or appearance given to an object, especially one that is intended to make it more attractive. | The art of designing
designverb
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
To plan and carry out (a picture, work of art, construction etc.). | To plan (to do something). | To assign, appoint (something to someone); to designate. | To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint. | To manifest requirements to be satisfied by an object or process for them to solve a problem.

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