Safeguarding Designs in a Material World

You are a supplier of cups, cutlery and curtains. Your customers constantly want different designs. Do you come up with each idea yourself independently? Or do you look at what other people have done and use their designs, with or without a few changes?

Everyone knows what a design is until you produce one and you want to protect it using the law. If your design does not fall into the invention arena, patent protection is probably not appropriate.  In general, copyright does not protect designs for some industrial-type mass-produced purpose and it is best to apply the specific design law before turning to copyright for protection.

Almost every country has design laws, and they differ, but probably not that much. It is best to protect a design by registration.

Taking the Australian system as an example, here are six points to know:

1.  Registering a design gives you a monopoly for 10 years.

2.  You can register a design cheaply and easily. However, if you want to enforce it, you must pay extra to have it examined.

3. You can challenge another registered design by insisting that it be examined. If successful, the registration will be revoked.

4. To register your design, it must be “new” and “distinctive” (not substantially similar in overall impression to another design, either in this country or overseas). Court cases can have a “yes it is”, “no it isn’t” feel to them.

5. Spare parts are not protected by design law in order to ensure competition in that market (e.g. cars).

6. You can infringe by making, importing, selling or hiring.

Most people don’t see very much wrong in copying a design, unless it is their own design being copied. Then they can get very upset.

Extract from Easy IP...How to Use the Law to Protect Your Money Making Ideas

 

© Paul.Brennan 2014. All rights reserved. 

 

 

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