Our solicitors are experts in all aspects of data protection law. Our IP lawyers have a detailed understanding of design law especially in the field of technology. We can use this knowledge to enhance any technology design business and have been involved in numerous leading and groundbreaking cases in the field of design.

For better protection, you can register your design. To do this, your design must meet the eligibility criteria of being new and having “individual character”. Designs which are dictated solely by the technical function of the product in question or which are contrary to public policy or morality may not be registered. Design registration does not merely protect against copying but against anyone who independently devises or develops a later design which infringes the registered design.

Infringement of a registered design right occurs when your design is reproduced by a third party. With unregistered protection, you will need to prove that your design has been copied.

By registering a design, the owner has a monopoly right in that design. This means that a third party cannot knowingly or unknowingly produce products that incorporate elements of the registered design so as to produce a design which “does not produce a markedly different impact on the informed user” as the registered design.

Accordingly, when your design is registered, you do not need to prove that your design has been copied to establish infringement. What you have to show is a high level of similarity between the registered design and the infringing design.