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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.
What is the
main advantage of registering your design?
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. |
