Industrial Design Registration
“Industrial Design” is defined by the Designs Act of 2000 as any shape, arrangement, color, or combination of lines, colors, or shapes used on a product, whether it is made of two-dimensional or three-dimensional materials, mechanical or chemical, that is processed or combined using any method, whether manual, mechanical, or chemical, to appeal only to the eye.
Design registration is granted to any design applied on a finished article in its finished form. If applied in part that part have to be independently a finished article. Your Design attorney can guide you in having the design application drafted with proper claim.
Design in order to be registered have to be absolutely novel and even a single publication can kill the registration. So it is very important to conduct a due diligence prior art search before making Design application.
Once registered, a design is valid for ten years from the registration date. By submitting an application for extension along with the required renewal fee prior to the 10-year term’s expiration, this term of ten years may be further extended for an additional five years. The entire process of registration takes around 6 to 7 months depending upon the diligence of the applicant and your Attorney.
Once registered under Designs Act, the copyright registration of such a design on the same finished article ceases. Alternatively, once design on a specific article is registered under Copyright then such copyright cease to exist if more than 50 copies have been commercially made by the proprietor. Therefore it becomes crucial decision to select between the Design Act and the Copyright Act diligently based on future prospects.
Industrial designs can be commercially exploited, promoted to any segment of society.
Source – WIPO, IPINDIA, CGPTDM-News
