U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues its one millionth design patent for Texas woman’s comb

A Fort Worth, Texas, woman has made patent history after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued its one millionth design patent for her comb.

The patent was issued on Tuesday, and protects the proprietary appearance of Agustina Huckaby’s comb.

The comb has a base to contain hair products, nozzles in between the prongs of the comb, and a trigger to help the user dispense the hair product as they use the comb. Ms. Huckaby’s comb is federally trademarked under the name Pomp and Powder.

“Being able to own that design and having something for my kids to look up to and pass on, that’s groundbreaking to me. I want to keep growing, keep building, keep creating as much as I can,” Ms. Huckaby said in a statement.

As opposed to the more common utility patent, which protects the way a product works or is used, a design patent protects how a product looks. As of 2021, U.S. patent officials had issued 11 million utility patents.

Notable previous design patents include the image of Yoda and R2D2 from “Star Wars” and the Statue of Liberty, the USPTO said in a release. The first U.S. design patent was issued to printer George Bruce in 1842 for a new font.