European Community Design Registration

Community design registration is an important alternative and valuable supplement to trademark protection in the European Union. The Registered Community Design System was introduced in April 2003 and established a new intellectual property right for the protection of designs and logos, harmonizing the various laws and protections previously afforded by each individual European Community member state. The new system has proven popular and efficient, as registration takes only three months regardless of the complexity of the application. As with other European Union protections, the primary advantage of the community design registration is that it an applicant to file a single registration for all EU countries and, if successful, receive protection in all 25 countries of the Community.

A “design” is designed broadly as “the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, and in particular, the lines, materials, colors contours, shapes, textures and ornamentation of the product.” Registration broadly protects the “look and feel” of a design that is part of a logo. As with any national design registration, a requirement to obtaining protection is that the design is both novel and not identical to another design that has been made available to the public, and of a individual character that it does not bring to mind any existing design.

Community Design Registration arguably provides greater, or at least additional, protection to the security provided by the European Community Trade Mark. Design registration provides the holder with the exclusive right to use the design and to prevent the making, offering, putting on the market, importing, exporting, using or stocking for such purposes by other of products incorporating the design. The right provides protection regardless of the class for which the design is registered, as opposed to the Community Trade Mark which provides protection to the extent that the infringing trade mark is either identical or similar and for identical or similar goods.

Simon Riveles