What designs can be registered?

A protectable design can be 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional.  Shapes, colours and textures all count, whether internal or external.  Parts of an overall design can be protected as well.

A design has to fulfil certain criteria to be capable of being registered.  It must be new, ie, different to designs that have been used or shown in public – anywhere, at any time, on any product – beforehand.  The overall impression it gives to the user must be different from that of any previously known designs.  Parts of the design which are dictated solely by the function of the product, or by a need for the product to fit with another product, are not on their own protectable, but if there's more to your design than that then overall it will probably be registrable.  The same applies to parts of the design which would be hidden in normal use.

In Europe and the USA, you can make your design public (eg, to advertise or sell the product) up to 12 months before you apply to register it.  In some countries, however, you have to apply to register before you've gone public.  It's therefore wise to keep your design confidential until after you've taken advice about protecting it – this means only showing it to others in confidence (preferably under a written confidentiality agreement) and not selling or advertising any products made to the design.

Registration is suitable for products which are likely to be sold or used for several years and which are chosen at least partly because they look pleasing.  Examples might include furniture and fittings, crockery, cutlery, most types of toy, accessories such as phones and handbags, certain types of clothing and footwear… the list goes on.

It is not generally appropriate if (a) your customers are less interested in what your product looks like than in how well it works (certain types of tool, for instance), (b) your product is likely to have a fairly short life (eg, less than a couple of years), (c) it would be easy for competitors to design a similar product which looked different and/or (d) the market will be swamped with many similar looking products.