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Design rights

What is a registered design right and is it right for you?

For practically all customer-facing products – whether a new software application or a physical product –  design and product appearance is vitally important.   

A registered design is a form of IP right used for protecting the aesthetics of a design. Once a design is validly registered, it can generally be used to prevent anyone else using the same or a similar design. Registered designs offer a cost-effective way of protecting your IP and also offer (in the UK and Europe) a relatively long term of up to 25 years.  Registered designs can be used to provide IP protection for products for which patent protection is not possible, or may instead offer a useful complement to patent protection.  

Notably, protection can be focused on particular areas of a design, or on particular aspects such as a shape.  Creative use of the registered design system can augment the IP protection available for your product.

12,516

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patent applications worldwide

2,635

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trade mark applications worldwide

1,956

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design applications worldwide

Our specialists in design rights understand how best to utilise the various design systems in order to protect your product.  Whether it’s the shape, colour or material of a product that matters, our team will work to protect your designs and to ensure that they are registered effectively. We have a large and well-established designs practice which has helped numerous household names secure strategic protection for their designs internationally.

We have particular expertise in obtaining broad design protection for features that pervade product lines, as well as significant experience in obtaining design protection for user interfaces.

Over 70 attorneys based in
the UK and Europe, and teams
based in China and Japan.