To defeat a motion for a preliminary injunction on the issue of potential invalidity in an infringement action, the accused infringing party must present evidence sufficient to raise a substantial question of invalidity. Regarding a design patent, such evidence includes evidence of the overall functionality of the design.
Furthermore, in order to consider the availability of alternative designs as a factor that proves the validity of a design patent, an affirmative finding that the alternative designs will not affect the utility of the article must be explicitly made if the accused infringing party has presented evidence to the contrary.