Intellectual Property

Design Rights

Expert design rights legal advice and support.

Specialist design rights lawyers

For businesses that design and manufacture products either for themselves or others, obtaining registered design protection is essential for safeguarding creative assets and intellectual property rights. Our design rights lawyers provide expert guidance on design law, ensuring businesses protect their innovations effectively.

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. Our design rights solicitors help businesses navigate the complexities of registered design rights, ensuring they are properly filed and enforced.

Conducting a design right audit to ensure that businesses have the appropriate protection in place.
Reviewing processes and advising on the best methods to capture and protect new designs.
Undertaking clearance work to ensure that businesses can freely use their designs without infringing on third-party rights.
Advising on what aspects of designs should be protected and how to register them with the Intellectual Property Office.
Filing registered design rights and handling renewals to maintain protection.
Drafting license agreements and other licensing arrangements to help businesses commercialise their designs while maintaining control over their intellectual property.
Assisting in enforcing design rights and taking legal action (if necessary) against infringement.
Drafting manufacturing contracts to ensure businesses retain the appropriate level of protection over their designs.

Related services

Why choose Foot Anstey?

At Foot Anstey, we work closely with businesses to align their design protection strategies with their commercial goals. Our design rights lawyers provide tailored legal support, ensuring that registered design protection is seamlessly integrated into business operations. Whether businesses are securing protection for new designs, enforcing their intellectual property rights, or managing license agreements, our intellectual property law specialists are well-equipped to provide expert assistance.

With significant experience in enforcing design rights, we are well-positioned to advise on legal action should a business face infringement. Our design rights solicitors work proactively to help clients avoid costly disputes by ensuring they have robust protection from the outset. If disputes arise, we have extensive experience in handling enforcement cases, whether through negotiation or litigation.

Our clients range from entrepreneurs and start-ups to some of the world’s leading companies across various industries. Our specialist design rights lawyers provide guidance on securing protection not only in the UK and EU but globally, working closely with reputable partner law firms. Through our international network, we can swiftly register a design right and secure expert legal advice to meet our clients’ commercial objectives.

Our people

Our IP design rights specialists understand the strategic importance of protecting creative assets and provide businesses with practical, cost-effective solutions.

Whether assisting with registered design rights, unregistered design rights, drafting license agreements, or considerations around trade marks, our design rights solicitors offer comprehensive legal support to help businesses maximise the value of their intellectual property.

Meet our team

Ben Travers

Partner

Head of Intellectual Property | Commercial, Tech & Data | International

01392685280

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Charlene Nelson

Managing Associate

Intellectual Property | Charities

01392685332

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Hannah Batten

Managing Associate

Commercial, Tech & Data | Intellectual Property

01179154975

Email Hannah Batten

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Natalie Monaghan

Senior Associate

Intellectual Property | Energy & Infrastructure

01392685219

Email Natalie Monaghan

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What do our clients say?

“They are very knowledgeable and grasp a clear understanding very quickly which helps with all communication. They have a good blend of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm.”

Chambers UK 2025

“Foot Anstey have plenty of resource in their team to meet our needs and they understand the commercial value of our portfolio, how to protect it and how to add further value.”

Chambers UK 2025

There are many benefits of registered protection, including:

Giving right holders the ability to prevent others from using the same design or a design with a similar overall impression.
Protecting the investment made in designing the products and make it far harder for third party competitors to produce similar products which will erode the uniqueness of the products.
For those businesses designing products for others, owning such rights will link the customer to you as they will not be able to go to other suppliers for the same product.
Enabling businesses to licence their rights to other businesses which may be better placed to utilise those rights either in the UK or overseas. Further, infringers can often be converted into licensees which will generate an income stream for right holders.
Registered UK and EU design protection is relatively quick and inexpensive.

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!

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.