Design Right

The term "Design Right" refers to the specific legal protection available to unregistered designs in the UK.

There are specific differences between Design Right and Registered Designs.

Registered Designs give you exclusive rights in a design, in the UK, for up to 25 years. You can stop people making, offering, putting on the market, importing, exporting, using or stocking for those purposes, a product to which your design is applied. You can protect two-dimensional designs or surface patterns as well as shape and configuration with a Registered Design.

By comparison, Design Right gives you automatic protection for the internal or external shape or configuration of an original design, i.e. its three-dimensional shape. Design Right allows you to stop anyone from copying the shape or configuration of the article, but does not give you protection for any of the 2-dimensional aspects, for example surface patterns. Protection is limited to the United Kingdom (UK), and lasts either 10 years after the first marketing of articles that use the design, or 15 years after creation of the design - whichever is earlier. For the last 5 years of that period the design is subject to a Licence of Right. This means that anyone is entitled to a licence to make and sell products copying the design.

If you are the owner of a design right subsisting in a design, you have the exclusive right to reproduce the design for commercial reasons by making articles to the design or by making a design document recording the design for the purpose of enabling articles to be made. If anyone else carries out these activities without your permission, they may infringe the design right.

However, it is more difficult to prove infringement of an unregistered Design Right as you must be able to prove it was copied, or that the potential for copying existed.


http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/design/d-about/d-designright.htm