Industrial Designs

The main route is a Registered Community Design (RCD) before the EUIPO: a single application protects the appearance of your product across all 27 member states. To be valid the design must be new and have individual character. We handle the application, classification and any later invalidity or infringement matters, and coordinate national or Hague System filings where you need protection beyond the EU.

A Registered Community Design gives an exclusive right you can enforce against any similar design, registered through the EUIPO. An unregistered Community design arises automatically when a design is first made available in the EU but lasts only three years and protects only against deliberate copying. Registration is stronger and longer; the unregistered right is a useful fallback for short-lived or fast-moving products such as seasonal fashion.

A Registered Community Design lasts five years from the filing date and can be renewed in five-year terms up to a maximum of twenty-five years. We track renewal deadlines so protection is not lost while the design is still commercially valuable.

The Hague System, administered by WIPO, lets you register industrial designs in multiple member countries through a single international application, with centralised management and renewal. It is efficient when you need design protection across several jurisdictions at once, and we use it alongside national filings where a country is not a member.

Design protection covers the appearance of a product or part of it — lines, contours, colours, shape, texture, materials or ornamentation. It protects how something looks, not how it works: technical features dictated solely by function are excluded and may instead call for a patent or utility model. We advise on where the boundary falls for your product.

These rights can overlap and often work best together. A design protects appearance, a trademark protects what identifies commercial origin (such as a distinctive shape used as a brand), and copyright can protect original creative works. Choosing the right combination depends on the product and the market; we advise on the mix that gives the most durable protection.

In the EU there is a twelve-month grace period: disclosing your own design does not destroy its novelty if you file within twelve months. It is still safer to file before public disclosure, because the grace period does not apply in every jurisdiction worldwide. We plan the filing timeline around your launch and your export markets.

Yes. We coordinate national design filings across Latin American and African jurisdictions through correspondent counsel, and use the Hague System where the country is a member. You keep a single point of contact for the whole Europe–Latin America–Africa corridor.