Basic Information & Exclusions
It is possible to register designs in the UK, Ireland and in any other national territory separately. Alternatively it is also possible to file a single application for registration of a unitary design providing equal protection across the entire European Union.
Registered Design protection is no longer product or article specific so a cutlery designer creating and obtaining a registered design for a three dimensional fish shaped handle as applied to a cutlery fork would be able to prevent someone applying the same three dimensional fish shaped design to the handle of an oar or a hairbrush provided the fish shaped design applied to the oar or hairbrush creates the same overall impression on an informed user.
The main benefit of registering your design is that you can prevent a third party exploiting your design without proving they have copied it. A third party independently creating a design after your registration will infringe your registration if their design creates the same overall impression on an informed user as your design. The registration process provides you with a monopoly right.
What is a design?
A design is defined as the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture or materials of the product or its ornamentation.
The term product means any industrial or handicraft item other than a computer program and, in particular, includes packaging, get-up, graphic symbols, typographic type-faces and parts intended to be assembled into a complex product. The term complex product means a product which is composed of at least two replaceable component parts permitting disassembly and reassembly of the product.
What are the basic requirements for a design to obtain registration?
A design will be registered if the design is new and has individual character. A design is considered new if no identical design or no design whose features differ only in immaterial details has been made available to the public before the filing date or priority date of the new design application.
A design is considered to have individual character if the overall impression it produces on the informed user differs from the overall impression produced on such a user by any design which has been made available before the filing date of the new design application. In determining the extent to which a design has individual character, the degree of freedom of the author in creating the design is taken into consideration.
Which aspects or features of a design are excluded from protection?
Features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by the product’s technical function are not protectable.
Features of appearance of a product which must necessarily be reproduced in their exact form and dimensions so as to permit the product to be mechanically connected to, or placed in, around or against, another product so that either product may perform its function are not registerable. These excluded features are commonly referred to as features which must fit.
This does not prevent you obtaining registration for features of a design serving the purpose of allowing multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system.
