VR Hardware and UI/UX: The next big thing in design patents

Google Cardboard - High Tech that melts in the rain. 

The internet teems with articles giving you the "20 next big things in X" or "15 reasons why everyone should know about technology Q." However,  most of these lists are really slim native advertisements for companies hawking all manner of kit and not really instructive on what the next big thing is going to be in any industry.

Luckily, I am here to tell you what the next big thing is going to be in a particular industry. I had the opportunity to go to Maker Faire this past weekend and take in the sights and sounds of what a low pretense, high diversity Burning Man would look like it if was hosted in Queens and had easy subway access. Among the automated pancake makers and drone suppliers, I kept noticing that what really stood out was the prevalence of VR (Virtual Reality Gear). VR gear was everywhere, not only in demo booths, but also strapped to the slack jawed faces of noobs and experts alike, usually through some jury-rigged cardboard contraption (as shown above).

VR Gear itself is a ripe for intellectual property protection. Usable VR gear presents a number of engineering and UX / UI problems that, when solved are like patentable inventions. Furthermore, just as in the Smartphone Wars (TM), the industrial design of one product versus another might spell the difference between a record shattering Iphone and an also ran Nokia. As such comapnies are going to be aggressive in patenting designs for hardware. Companies like Oculus Rift (Facebook acquired) already have pending an issued design patents cover the form of their VR headsets, and their products have not reached consumers yet.  

Occulus Rift Issued Design Patent on VR Gear. 

However, hardware is, well...hard, and designs for VR Gear are likely to be refined within the walls of engineering and design studios with massive budgets and expansive teams.  Neither of these resources are going to be available to the nimble, cash strapped, start-up.

On the other-hand, VR GUIs, i.e. the graphical display of information within the VR helmet, is the same sort of disruptive opportunity that garage tinkers, and lean teams have made fortunes on. Much like the design patents Apple Inc. received on its icon arrangement for the Iphone, VR companies will be looking to find the optimized, and proprietary, ways to display information to a user.

If one were asking me the "next big thing" is design patent law - I would say it is the race to develop and patent the most beautiful and intuitive VR UI this side of The Lawn Mower Man. In this race, the field is wide open.