Design Registration in the UK

Design rights in the UK are a form of intellectual property protection that protects the shape and appearance of your business’s products or a part of a product. Registration grants your designs legal protection and rights, which you can enforce against any business or individual who steals your work. In this article, we will explain how you can protect the valuable designs of your business using registered design rights.

What Designs Can I Register?

Your product design includes the way it looks, its shape, and how you decorate it. Registering your design can protect any of these aspects from those seeking to copy it.

To register a design, it must fulfil specific requirements. These include:

• the design must be unique and novel;
• it must be your own creation;
• it cannot be offensive; and
• you cannot include protected emblems or flags in your design.

If you are not sure whether your product is unique, you can search the United Kingdom designs register. There are also design registers for the European Union if you intend to trade there. If you want to trade globally, there is also a world design database run by the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The Intellectual Property Office will also conduct a search for you for a fee of £24.

How to Register Your Design

You can apply for a registered design right in the UK through the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). You need to include illustrations of your design. The IPO website includes helpful guidelines about the illustrations, and an intellectual property lawyer will be able to help you determine if your design meets the requirements.

You can include up to 12 illustrations if you apply online. If you want to include more, you should apply by post. 

The table below contains the application fees for design registration. If you wish to register more than ten designs simultaneously, consult the IPO website for pricing.

You can also choose whether you want to defer your registration for up to 12 months from the date you apply. You may consider this if you need to spend more time developing or marketing your product or if you are also applying for a patent and do not want people to know about your product yet.

It will take approximately eight weeks for the IPO to consider your application. If there are no objections to your application, your design will be registered straight away unless you have chosen to defer it.

Why Might Someone Object to My Design Application?

Anybody can object to your design registration if they think there is no valid basis for it. They can do this during the registration application or even after it has already been registered. It will often be your competitors who raise an objection, but it could be any third party. 

There are a few reasons why someone might object to a design registration application. For example, someone could say your design is not new or does not comply with the statutory requirements. In addition, they might claim that an earlier design is too similar. They may also claim it copies someone else’s design, such as their own.

What is the Benefit of Registering My Design?

A successful design registration will protect the registered aspects of your design. You have an exclusive right to use your design and can stop anyone in the UK from using those features for five years. You can continue to renew every five years for up to a total of 25 years. If you want to renew, you can do so online through the IPO.

Having a design registration also simplifies the process of taking legal action against anyone using or copying your design. You also get a design registration number to put on your design. This indicates to others that your design has protection.

Developing an Effective Design Registration Strategy

Developing a robust design strategy will help you maximise your intellectual property protection. As a furniture company, you might register the unique shape of a chair, while considering how it fits within your broader product line. Fashion houses often register patterns or unique fastenings, timing registrations with seasonal launches. Consider international markets too; if you are a UK-based brand expanding into Europe, you might consider using the Hague System. This international agreement allows you to file a single application to protect your design in multiple countries. Integrating design registration into your IP strategy allows you to build a valuable portfolio of protected designs that support your long-term goals and market position.

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Key Takeaways

Registering your designs not only gives you better and longer protection but also gives you a potentially profitable business asset. A design registration can help you protect against copycats as well, which means that you will be rewarded for your hard work in creating designs.

Moreover, having a registered design simplifies the process of taking legal action against infringers, providing you with a stronger position to defend your creative work in the marketplace.

If you need help ensuring your copyright is fully protected, our experienced intellectual property lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents. Call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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