Design Protection

The question

You have put time and money into how your product looks: a chair, a bottle, a phone case, a piece of jewellery, an app icon or the packaging on the shelf. A trademark protects the name and a patent the technical idea, but the appearance itself is protected by a design right. It covers the shape, contours, colours, texture or ornamentation of a product, as long as the design is new and has individual character: an informed user must get a different overall impression from it than from what already exists.

In Europe you have a few routes. A registered EU design, filed with the EUIPO, covers all EU countries for five years at a time, renewable up to twenty-five years. A Benelux design, filed with the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property, does the same for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Through the Hague system at WIPO, one international application can reach many other countries. Next to that, the EU protects unregistered designs for three years from the day they are first made public in the EU, but only against deliberate copying.

The practical questions are always the same. Do we need to register, or is the unregistered right enough? Can we still file after we showed the product at a trade fair? Which versions and views should we file? And what do we do about the copy that just appeared on a marketplace?

Our approach

We start from your product plan and launch calendar. Many products have a short commercial life, and for those the unregistered right can be enough. For products that should sell for years, or that are easy to copy, registration gives stronger protection: you do not have to prove copying, only that the other product gives the same overall impression.

Timing matters. After you disclose a design yourself, you have twelve months to file it in the EU and Benelux without losing novelty. We plan the filing around that window and, if you want to keep the design secret until launch, ask for publication to be deferred.

We then prepare the application: which views, which variants, and whether several designs can go in one application to save cost. We file and follow the procedure until registration.

Your registrations go into our portfolio platform, next to your trademarks and patents. Every five-year renewal is docketed, and each computed date is confirmed by a person before you are asked to decide. Our guide on renewal management explains the logic, and the IP lifecycle guide shows where designs fit among your other rights.

When a look-alike appears online, we prepare the notice for the platform or marketplace with a timestamped evidence pack (takedowns and enforcement notices). For copies in shops or at trade fairs, we send a formal letter, ask customs to watch for counterfeit goods and, where needed, go to court.

Our technology prepares the filings, tracks the deadlines and keeps the evidence. A patent attorney or lawyer decides what to file, reviews every application and signs every letter.

What you get

• Advice on which designs to protect, how and in which countries.
• Filed applications with the right views and variants.
• A portfolio overview with every renewal date confirmed.
• Notices, letters and, if needed, customs measures or proceedings against copies.

If the product also carries a new name or a technical invention, we look at trademark registration and a patent strategy at the same time.

Next step

Send us images of the product and your launch date. We will tell you which route fits and what it costs.

Schedule a meeting or contact us.