This is an excellent article that takes on the issue of design patents being issued in situations where even the low threshold of originality required for copyright protection is too high, such as in the case of design patents on business forms.  Excerpt:

The standard for copyright protection is notoriously low — the work must be independently created by the author and possess a minimal degree of creativity. Nonetheless, even with that generous standard, the courts and the Copyright Office recognize that certain works do not contain even that minimum level of creativity such that they are categorically refused copyright protection. Blank forms, and other forms that do not convey information, fall within this category. 

In contrast, and for good reason, the standard for design patent protection is much more burdensome. Design patents protect new, original, ornamental, and non-obvious designs. This more difficult standard, which generally subsumes the copyright standard, would lead one to assume that anything failing the low copyright would not be eligible for design patent protection.  Then again, one might be wrong. The Patent and Trademark Office has issued design patents for blank forms and recent case law has either upheld design patent protection for blank forms or declined to categorically refuse such protection.

This article explores the blank forms doctrine in copyright law, the overlap between copyright and design patent protection, why the law's refusal to protect blank forms under copyright law is necessarily inconsistent with the law's protection of blank forms via design patents, and possible judicial, Congressional, or administrative solutions to resolve this inconsistency.

Read the whole article here.