Design registration in the EU
Design registration in the EU will help you to secure your rights to the looks of your product.
Below, Registered European Union Designs (REUDs) are discussed. If you are seeking to protect your technology, please read about patents
What is a design?
DESIGN means the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials, of the product itself and/or of its decoration, including the movement, transition or any other sort of animation of those features
Product means any industrial or handicraft item, other than a computer program, regardless of whether it is embodied in a physical object or materialises in a non-physical form, including:
a) packaging, sets of articles, spatial arrangements of items intended to form an interior or exterior environment, and parts intended to be assembled into a complex product;
b) graphic works or symbols, logos, surface patterns, typographic typefaces, and graphical user interfaces;
Examples of registered designs
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| REUD-001929464-0001 | REUD-003458918-0006 | Rp.26005 | REUD-000600242-0002 |
Prerequisites for a design to be registered
A design shall be protected by a EU design to the extent that it is new and has individual character.
NOVELTY
A registered EU design shall be considered to be new if no identical design has been made before the date of filing of the application for registration of the design for which protection is claimed, (or, if priority is claimed, the date of priority).
Designs shall be deemed to be identical if their features differ only in immaterial details.
INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER
A registered EU design shall be 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 to the public before the date of filing the application for registration (or, if a priority is claimed, the date of priority).
In assessing individual character, the degree of freedom of the designer in developing the design shall be taken into consideration.
Scope of protection of a registered design
The scope of the protection conferred by a EU design shall include any design which does not produce on the informed user a different overall impression.
In assessing the scope of protection, the degree of freedom of the designer in developing his design shall be taken into consideration.
The scope of the protection conferred by a EU design is not limited to the products indicated in the application, but extends to all other products in which the design could be incorporated – for example, is someone sells in the EU a bathtub in the exact shape of our REUD (and our REUD is just a food container) he would infringe that REUD.
A EU design shall not subsist in features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by its technical function.
A European Union design shall not subsist in features of appearance of a product which must necessarily be reproduced in their exact form and dimensions in order to permit the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its function.
Registered European Union Design – rights conferred
A registered EU design shall confer on its holder the exclusive right to use it and to prevent any third party not having his consent from using it. The aforementioned use shall cover, in particular, the making, offering, putting on the market, importing, exporting or using of a product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied, or stocking such a product for those purposes.
Simply put
What is protected by registered EU designs is what is visible in their drawings – as they appear in the EUIPO register and in the certificate of registration (except for the features solely dictated by their technical function). It is completely irrelevant what products you put on the market. You can even not offer any of these types of products at all and still pursue claims against the entity that copies your registered designs for commercial use. Designs (unlike registered trademarks) do not have a use requirement.
Our design services
- Design registration in Poland, in the EU and in most countries of the World
- Filing for invalidity of Polish and EU registered designs
- Design prosecution and litigation
- Drafting design transfer and license agreements
- Conducting disputes and negotiations in the field of registered designs
- Design protection strategy advice