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Major Update to UK Registered Designs Law

UK registered designs law is about to undergo its most significant change for over fifty years.

The European Directive to harmonise designs law throughout the European Union will, if all goes well, be implemented in the UK on 9 December 2001 (delayed from the original target date of 28 October 2001).  For applicants, this has several principal consequences, the most significant of these being:

• The range of designs that can be registered will be broadened.

• There is a "grace period" of 12 months after a design is made public within which an application can still be validly filed.

Registered design protection will no longer be restricted to "articles"; a design in the abstract can be protected.  This removes a particularly awkward limitation to registrability that was present in present law.   It will now be possible to register parts of a product, whereas, in the past, only whole products ("articles") could be registered.  It will also be possible to register designs that are not tangible articles at all.  An icon in a computer graphical user interface, or the appearance of an application on a computer display should be registrable, offering an entirely new form of protection for computer software products.

To be registrable, a design will have to posses a "distinctive character".  Only time will tell how this will be interpreted in practice.

For this change to happen, parliament must approve the draft regulations laid before it.  If approval is not given, implementation of the directive will be significantly delayed.  We will know more on the 28th.

The Patent Office has produced a very helpful information leaflet.   Please contact me if you wish to receive a copy of this.

More information can be obtained from the web site of the UK Patent Office.

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