How broad of a patent can you get?

Question

Creator of milestone blanket has a patent pending for the design which is a cloth with numbers (1-12) and the words "months" "weeks" or "days" on them.  Can this broad design be patented just for them to make?

Kevin E. Flynn · Answer

The idea that is patent pending, may deal with a way to efficiently make the product rather than the product features. So it is hard to know exactly what is pending.  There may be a near-worthless provisional patent application pending that they filed themselves.  Technically, the status is patent pending, but that may not be a patent application with any chance of moving forward. 
 
Technically it is a violation of federal law to mark a product patent pending when there is not a patent pending, but folks violate that rule.  Or they leave patent pending on the product long after their patent application was denied. 
 
It is possible that the manufacturer is seeking a design patent on the ornamental appearance of the item.  So you can provide similar functionality as long as you do not provide a confusingly similar ornamental appearance such that people would assume that your item came from the same people that own the design patent.  (for more detail see - https://www.flynniplaw.com/services/legal-services/united-states-design-patents) 
 
You can search for a published application of their patent application using tools described in my slide set at http://bit.ly/Patent_Searching.   
 
You can search for patent applications assigned to that company by searching for assignee at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search .   
 
I hope this helps. 
 
Kevin E Flynn

Q: How broad of a patent can you get?