DESIGN RIGHTS
An
overview of Design Rights
Design rights are complex and getting expert advice in this area
is essential. In essence, they relate to the "visual appearance
of products" and, to further complicate matters, there are
two types of Design rights in the UK - Registered and Unregistered.
Registered Designs relate to Designs which are determined to be
registrable in terms of a formal application procedure. In this
regard the Design must be "material" to the customer
in its shape, pattern or ornament. If granted, registered Design
rights give their owner a monopoly right (as with Patents and
registered Trade Marks) that lasts for 25 years, providing renewal
fees are paid at five yearly periods.
Unregistered Design rights are a less formal rights that, as the
name suggests, do not involve a formal application procedure.
They only give protection to the owner against copying of the
design, and, unlike their registered alternative, are not a monopoly
right. There are two types of unregistered Design rights - UK
and EU; both exist in parallel and for a design produced in the
UK it is likely that the design will attract protection under
both schemes.Furthermore, unregistered Design rights last for
a shorter period.
UK unregistered Design right lasts for ten years from first marketing
and, during the last five years of their life, anyone is entitled
to obtain a licence (called a Licence of Right) to use the protected
Design on the payment of royalties. EU unregistered Design right
lasts for three years from when the design was first made available
to the public within the European Community. There are no compulsory
Licence of Right provisions with EU unregistered Design right.
It is worth pointing out that UK unregistered Design rights do
not apply to two-dimensional surface decoration of articles, although
such decoration may be protected by EU unregistered Design right
and will also frequently be protected by an alternative Intellectual
Property right, Copyright.
Finally it should be noted that many countries have protection
equivalent to registered Designs, but unregistered Design rights
are unique to the UK and EU. Also in the UK, UK unregistered Design
rights are used as a means of protecting semiconductor topographies,
i.e. the physical design of circuit chips, as well as related
drawings and masks. In other countries, protection of these usually
requires some form of registration.
