Important to keep in mind: the fact that UA registered a patent for a seat design does not necessarily mean that they want to use that seat. It simply means that (a) they co-developed the seat, (b) they think it's unique enough to count as their invention, and (c) they want to collect money if other airlines use it. It's pretty common for companies to register patents as a way to monetize inventions that they have no intention of implementing themselves.

I think another blog recently mentioned that CX filed a bunch of first class seat design patents, and it was pretty clear that they weren't going to use all of them at once.