– Law of Ukraine on the Protection of Rights to Industrial Designs, in force since July 1, 1994, last amended on March 20, 2023.

– Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as of April 26, 1970.
– Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, Stockholm Act, as of December 25, 1991.
– Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, since August 28, 2002, Geneva Act as of December 23, 2003.
– The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille), as of December 22, 2003.
– WTO’s TRIPS Agreement, since May 16, 2008.
– Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs, since July 7, 2009.

Applicant: individuals or legal entities. 

Foreigners: must elect a patent attorney in Ukraine; enjoy the same rights as nationals. 

Protectable: industrial designs may have an appearance of a product or a part of it, which is determined, in particular, by the lines, contours, color, shape, texture and/or material of the product and/or finishing of it which are new and have individual nature. An industrial design may obtain legal protection as (1) a registered industrial design, if it is entered into the State Register of Industrial Designs of Ukraine, which is maintained in electronic form, or if it is granted legal protection in Ukraine in accordance with the international registration of industrial designs under the Hague Agreement on International Registration of Industrial Designs; (2) non-registered industrial design, if it is communicated to the public, i.e. it was published, exposed at an exhibition, used in trade or otherwise made public in such a way that during normal business activities such measures, for objective reasons, could become known in the circles specializing in a specific area and carrying out their activity in the territory of Ukraine.

Not registrable: (1) items of unstable form made of liquid, gaseous, friable or similar substances, etc.; (2) outcome of intellectual, artistic activities in the sphere of artistic construction,  implemented or applied in the item, which is part of the composite item and which is invisible in the course of normal use of the item. Normal use of the item shall mean the use of it by the end user; furthermore, logistics, maintenance or repair of the item shall not be deemed to be the normal use; (3) signs of appearance of the item stipulated by its technical functions only; (4) signs of appearance of the item, which size and form must be accurately reproduced in order for one of the products to be mechanically connected to the other item or located inside, around or in front of the other item in such a manner that each item could perform its respective function (the aforementioned regulation does not extend to the appearance of the items designed for multiple assembly or connection of interchangeable products inside a modular construction).

Novelty: the industrial design shall be deemed to be new, if neither identical industrial design has been communicated to the general public in terms of (a) a registered industrial design - prior to the day of application submission to the Institution or, if the priority has been stated, prior to the day of its priority; (b) a non-registered industrial design - prior to the day on which the industrial design, in terms of which the protection is required, has been communicated to the general public for the first time. Industrial designs shall be deemed to be identical in the event that their substantial features differ only in terms of minor details. During the process of establishing novelty of the industrial design, any information that has become publicly available prior to the date of application submission, and if the applicant has stated priority - prior to the date of the priority, including the content of all applications previously received by the Institution shall be taken into consideration, excluding those, which are deemed to be revoked, which are revoked or decisions are made by the Institution with regard to them on refusal to conduct the state registration of the industrial design and opportunities to appeal such decisions have been exhausted.

Individual nature: the industrial design shall be recognized as the one having its individual nature, in case the general impression it makes on the informed user is different from the general impression that is made on such user by any other industrial design communicated to the general public concerning (a) a registered industrial design - prior to the day of application submission to the Institution or, if the priority has been stated, prior to the day of its priority; (b) a non-registered industrial design - prior to the day on which the industrial design, in terms of which the protection is required, has been communicated to the general public for the first time. To assess an individual nature, a degree of author's freedom while creating an industrial design shall be taken into consideration.

Priorities: Conventional (Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property or the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization) and exhibition priority within the period of six months from the date of filing a previous application and from the date of commencement of the first open showcasing an exhibit at an exhibition, where the industrial design applied for has been used or presented. The applicant willing to use the priority right, during three months from the date of application submission to the NIPO, shall provide an application on the priority.

Multiple applications: an application may be related to one or several industrial designs belonging to one and the same ICID class. A multiple application may contain no more than one hundred industrial designs. In the multiple application, an applicant(s) and also author(s) for all industrial designs applied for shall be one and the same persons.  

Territory covered: Ukraine.

Filing requirements for an application (to be sent to resident patent attorney):
1. Power of attorney (no legalization required);
2. General view of the article (picture) and other views (2 sets);
3. Specification of the design (1 set);
4. Priority document, if any (to be filed within three months from the filing date).

Electronic filing: the application may be submitted on paper or electronically. The way of application submission shall be the choice of the applicant.

For a change of name or address:
1. A document confirming the legality of the change e.g. a legalized extract from the Commercial Register;
2. Power of attorney (no legalization required);
3. A document confirming payment of the fee.

Examination: formal (subject to the owner's responsibility for compliance of the industrial design with the registrability criteria). Final expert examination findings on the application, which is not deemed to have been revoked or has not been revoked, shall be specified in a justified conclusion on expert examination. For a multiple application, a decision may be made on the state registration of certain industrial designs and the refusal in state registration of the remaining designs. Final findings of the expert examination under the international registration, in case of refusal to recognize its validity, shall be mentioned in a notice of full or partial refusal to recognize its international registration in Ukraine, which shall be sent to the International Bureau of WIPO. In the event of recognizing validity of international registration within the territory of Ukraine, a relevant notice shall not be sent to the International Bureau of WIPO.

Amendment of application: possible before the receipt of the granting decision or a decision on the refusal of the grant by the applicant, provided that the amendments do not go beyond the scope of the application as filed.

Division of application: in response to the proposal of the NIPO or at personal initiative, the applicant shall have the right to divide the multiple application by two and more applications by distributing the industrial designs applied for between them prior to decision-making by the NIPO on the application. The applicant has the right, within one month from the date of receipt of the notice or the conclusion of the examination with a request to provide additional materials, to request from the NIPO the copies of materials opposed to the application. Additional materials must be submitted by the applicant within two months (the term may be extended, but for not more than six months) from the date of receipt of the notification or conclusion of the examination or copies of materials opposed to the application.

Appeal: the applicant may appeal the decision of the NIPO on the application in court, as well as in the Chamber of Appeals within two months, by filing an objection against the decision. The right to appeal the decision to the Chamber of Appeals is lost in the case of payment of state duty for registration of an industrial design. The decision of the Chamber of Appeals may also be challenged by the applicant in court within two months from the date of receipt of the decision.

Registration and publication: the state registration of an industrial design is carried out within three months (this term can be extended, but for not more than six months) from the date of receipt of the decision by the applicant, subject to payment of state duty and publication fee. Simultaneously, with the state registration of the industrial design, the publication is made in the Bulletin.

Scope of protection: rights to a registered industrial design shall enter into force from the day following the day of state registration of the industrial design and shall be certified by a certificate containing an image of the industrial design entered in the State Register of Industrial Designs of Ukraine. The rights to the industrial design, which has international registration, shall not be certified with the certificate. The scope of legal protection conferred under the registered industrial design shall be determined by the image of the industrial design entered in the Register.  The scope of legal protection of an industrial design includes any other industrial design that does not create a different general impression on the informed user. To determine the scope of legal protection, the degree of freedom of the author's freedom during the creation of an industrial design is taken into account.  A holder of a non-registered industrial design communicated to the general public shall be entitled to prohibit its copying and use which is a consequence of copying of an unregistered industrial design in the manufacture of the product, offering it for sale, including via the Internet, sale, import, export and its other introduction into civil circulation or storage of such product for the said purposes. The industrial design shall not be deemed to be the result of copying in the event it has been created by an independent artistic work of the author, in terms of whom it is possible to think that he/she has been familiarized with the industrial design, communicated to the general public by the holder of the non-registered industrial design.

Issuance of document: the certificate for the registered industrial design is issued (in paper format only) within one month from the date of state registration of the industrial design.

Duration – extension: duration of a registered industrial design is five years from the date of application and can be extended for one or more five-year periods, but not more than twenty-five years from the date of application. The duration of legal protection of a non-registered industrial design is three years from the date of its communication to the public in the territory of Ukraine.

Right of prior user: provided for. 

Opposition/Invalidation: rights to the industrial design may be invalidated either in full or partially through the court on certain variants of industrial designs referred to in the certificate in the following cases (a) non-correspondence of the industrial design with the terms of providing legal protection; (b) existence of features in an image of the industrial design, which were not specified in the application submitted; (c) state registration of the industrial design with violation of other persons' rights. Any person shall have the right to provide the Chamber of Appeals with a justified statement of invalidation of rights to the industrial design either in full or partially on the basis of non-correspondence of the industrial design with the terms of providing legal protection. An industrial design recognized by a court or the Chamber of Appeals as not meeting the terms for granting legal protection shall not be re-registered.

Assignment – license: registration with the NIPO is not compulsory. A party to a license or assignment agreement may inform third persons about the grant of the license or assignment of rights. Such notice is made through the publication of the corresponding particulars in the Official Bulletin, and such particulars are simultaneously entered in the Register. According to the Civil Code, the fact of transfer of rights to the industrial design is subject to registration.

Infringement and penalties: the law provides for administrative (such as fines and confiscation of infringing products), civil and penal sanctions, including imposition of fines on infringers, confiscation of goods illegally incorporating the patented design, equipment and materials used for their manufacture, as well as destruction of such infringing goods and equipment, hard labor or imprisonment. At the request of the owner of a registered or non-registered industrial design, an infringer shall compensate the owner for property damage by indemnification of losses or payment of compensation and/or for non-property (moral) damage caused. The amount of damages shall be determined by the court taking into account the lost profit or income received by the infringer as result of his infringement of the rights of the owner of a registered or non-registered industrial design. The amount of compensation may not be less than the amount of remuneration that would have been paid for the grant of permission to use the rights to the registered or unregistered industrial design in respect of which a dispute arose.