Industrial design rights in the European Union

Industrial design rightsin the European Unionare provided at both the Union level by virtue of theCommunity designand at the national level under individual national laws.

Eligible designs[edit]

A design is defined as "the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation".

Designs may be protected if:

they arenovel,that is if no design identical or differing only in immaterial details has been made available to the public;
they haveindividual character,that is the "informed user" would find the overall impression different from other designs which are available to the public. Where a design forms part of a more complex product, the novelty and individual character of the design are judged on the part of the design which is visible during normal use.

Designs are not protected insofar as their appearance is wholly determined by their technical function, or by the need to interconnect with other products to perform a technical function (the "must-fit" exception). However modular systems such asLegoorMeccanomay be protected.

Community design[edit]

Registered and unregisteredCommunity designsare available under EU Regulation 6/2002,^[1]which provide a unitary right covering theEuropean Union.Protection for a registered Community design is for up to 25 years, subject to the payment of renewal fees every five years. The unregistered Community design lasts for three years after a design is made available to the public and infringement only occurs if the protected design has been copied.

National laws[edit]

National systems ofregistered designsremain in place alongside the system ofCommunity designs:registration in a small number of countries is cheaper than Community registration, and may be more appropriate for smaller manufacturers. The Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) form a single area with respect to designs, administered by theBenelux Office for Intellectual Property.

National laws are harmonised by theDirective on the legal protection of designs:^[2]the criteria for eligibility and the duration of protection are the same as for registered Community designs. Many Member States also protectunregistered design rightsunder their national law, but these are not covered by the Directive.

International treaties[edit]

The protection of industrial design rights is required by theAgreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights(TRIPS, Arts. 25 & 26), to which the European Union is a party.^[3]TheRegulation on Community designsprovides for the recognition of thepriority dateof an application for design right registration in a country which is either a member of theWorld Trade Organizationor a party to theParis Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

On 1 January 2008, the European Union became a party to theGeneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs^[4].This followed the proposal of the European Commission on 22 December 2005^[5].

Spare parts used for repair[edit]

The protection of "component parts of complex products", in particular spare parts for cars, was left to Member States' discretion in Directive 98/71/EC, given the divergence of practices and opinions. As required by that Directive, theEuropean Commissionhas conducted research on the question, which found that spare parts such as wings and bumpers were 6.4–10.3% more expensive in countries where these parts were protected by industrial design rights compared with countries where no such protection existed: it has proposed that the design right protection on these parts be abolished throughout the European Union.^[6]

References[edit]

External links[edit]