A design is the image of a product or part thereof consisting of specific properties of the product and/or its specific ornamental properties such as lines, contours, colors, shape, texture and/or material. A design is intended to distinguish your product from other products available on the market and provides added value to your product.
To protect the design’s uniqueness, it is advisable to register your design. Registration grants the exclusive right to use the design and prevents other persons from using your work and receiving financial benefits in a specified territory.
A design may be registered and protected if it is novel and has individual character. This means that no other identical design must be publicly available before the date of submission of your application to the patent office and that the overall impression of the design created for consumers differs from the overall impression created by any other design. A design qualifies as identical to another design if its properties differ only slightly from those of another design. Furthermore, a design that you wish to register may not contain a third party trademark or official state symbols.
The image of a product may be protected in several ways: as an object of copyright, as a three-dimensional trademark, as an unregistered design and as a registered design. Registration of a design guarantees the best and most appropriate protection for the image of a product.
For a design to be registered, it must satisfy the following criteria:
We evaluate whether your design satisfies the criteria above and whether it is eligible for registration. We also perform a search of earlier designs, identify potential risks of protest and evaluate the probability of defending design registration in case of any such letters of protest.
We analyze your specific situation and propose the optimal strategy for registering your design. We help to properly select classes of products for which your design will be used according to the Locarno Classification. We also draft the required documents, register your design and notify you of each and every step in this process.
We monitor the validity period of your design and timely notify you about its expiry and also draft documents required for extending your design protection. A design is registered and protected for 25 years, and registration is extended every 5 years. Registration must be extended at least 6 months before expiry of its validity period.
We perform design post-registration procedures and, if required, assist you in disposing of your design, i.e. in the assignment, pledge or granting of licenses to other persons to use your intellectual property or part thereof in a certain territory or for certain goods, guaranteeing financial benefits for you.