Design protection

A new product often sells on its appearance: the shape of a chair, the pattern on a fabric, the outline of a bottle, the screens of an app. It takes months to develop and a few weeks for a competitor to imitate. Many businesses find out only when a lookalike reaches the market that they showed the design at a trade fair or on social media before filing anything, or that they were relying on a protection they never actually had.

Design law rewards those who plan the protection together with the launch. The questions are practical — what to file, when, and in how much detail — and they decide whether a court will later see a rival product as an imitation or as a legitimate alternative:

• the rules on novelty and individual character, and on how a design is measured against everything already shown to the public;
• the rules on unregistered protection, what it covers, and why it is shorter and narrower than a registration;
• the rules on disclosure before filing — at a fair, in a catalogue or online — and on the grace period that may still allow a valid application;
• the rules on preparing an application — the views, the product indication and the features that set the scope of protection;
• the rules on deferring publication, and on keeping a new collection confidential until its launch;
• the rules on spare parts, and on the connecting features that must fit another product and so remain free for others to use;
• the rules on the informed user, and on when a competing product leaves a different overall impression;
• the rules on overlap with copyright and shape marks, and on when one product can be protected in more than one way.

Our lawyers can support you with this.