Industrial Designs
Legal Basis
– Patents and Designs Act 1930.
– Patent and Designs Rules 1903.
Membership in International Conventions
– The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille) – in effect by extension from the U.K.
Filing and Protection
Applicant: the proprietor of any new or original design not previously published.
Registrability: must be new.
Novelty: worldwide novelty is required.
Classification: based on the Locarno Agreement.
Multiple applications: the same design may be registered in more than one class.
Priority: within six months of registration.
Duration – beginning of protection: five years from the filing date.
Renewal: possible for two further consecutive periods of five years upon payment of the prescribed fee.
Assignment: possible.
License: possible.
Filing requirements for an application (to be sent to resident registered agent):
1. Authorization of agent;
2. If the applicant is not the creator, a statement or assignment justifying the applicant’s right to registration;
3. The application shall contain a request, drawings, photographs or other adequate graphic representations of the article embodying the industrial design and an indication of the kind of products for which it is to be used;
4. 3 specimens of the article embodying the industrial design where it is two-dimensional may accompany the application.
Electronic filing: not available.
Electronic signatures: are not accepted.
Filing requirements for re-registration (to be sent to resident registered agent):
1. Authorization of agent;
2. Two certified copies of the original grant of the U.K. or EU design.