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For businesses that design and manufacture products either for themselves or others, they should seriously consider obtaining registered design protection for their products.
Designs can be unregistered (where they arise automatically and have a much narrower scope of protection) or registered (where protection offers a much wider monopoly right).
There are many benefits of registered protection, including:
Relying on the unregistered design right which arises in the UK and EU makes enforcing your rights to prevent others from using your design much harder and more expensive. Whilst an unregistered design right arises automatically, as its scope and duration is far more limited than a registered design, we encourage businesses to file for registered designs.
A design registration protects the appearance of a whole or part of a product, including 2D images and 3D objects. It is often advisable to register parts of a product as well as the whole as a third party is more likely to copy only a product’s part rather than the whole.
Design registrations can include graphic symbols (such as a logo), typography, physical shapes, configurations, decorations, colour, patterns, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation. Using a quirky-looking chair as an example – a design registration can include anything from its unique shape, its colours and pattern, its packaging, get up and logo emblazoned on the chair and even the chair leg! A guide to the most common asked questions on registered designs can be found here.
If you are a business creating any product designs, do get in touch with our specialised design lawyers and attorneys to understand how design protection can protect your business and the process and cost involved.
Our team operates across the UK from our offices in Bristol, Exeter, London, Plymouth, Southampton and Manchester. We can advise you not just on securing these rights in the UK and EU but all around the world, either through the international design system or as individual designs filed in national countries.
Given our significant experience in enforcing rights, we are uniquely placed to advise you on what protection to put in place to ensure that any disputes can be resolved quickly with strong rights. Also, should your design be copied by a third party or a third party is claiming that you are infringing its design, we have significant experience in bringing and defending design right infringement cases and resolving such claims without going to trial.
At Foot Anstey, we work with you to consider your present and future commercial goals and ensure that your design right strategy is bespoke and suitable for you in the short and long term. Our expert design lawyers and attorneys will take time to get to know you and your objectives and then cut through the legal jargon in order to provide clear advice on how best to achieve your goals. Our clients range from entrepreneurs to start-ups and some of the world’s leading companies in a range of sectors. The team works regularly with reputable partner law and attorney firms around the world, meaning our advice is specifically tailored to your target market. Through our network, we can reach out quickly to register a design right and secure expert advice.
Examples of our support:
Our team, led by renowned IP specialist Paul Cox, will understand what you are trying to achieve and then will advise on the best and most cost effective solutions to enable you to maximize the value and achieve your commercial objectives. Paul has also been admitted into the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for Intellectual Property (South East).
Senior Associate (Chartered Trade Mark Attorney)
Intellectual Property | National Charities
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