You make clothes, jewelry or curtains. It doesn't matter, even if they are chairs. If your design is unique, you can protect it. Many people think of a patent, but that is a bit different and that is why I am going to explain how you can register a design.
A model registration is the way to protect designs and designs, because it gives you intellectual property rights to your 2D or 3D design.
The design right is laid down in USTOP and it appears that the drawings thereof must meet strict conditions. The model may also not have been made public more than a year ago. Actually, a novelty requirement also applies to a model, as we know with a patent.
A patent – in EU ordinary patent - must meet four requirements. It must be a:
• invention
• novelty
• inventive step
• industrially applicable invention
A design registration has different requirements than a brand name registration or patent. Because it only has to be new, must have its own character and must have an appearance that is susceptible to protection, many more things are susceptible to registration. For example, a design may not have a shape that is necessary for the function of the design.
Sounds very complicated, but you can't capture a square or rectangular window as a model.
The novelty requirement is hard. If a design has not yet been shown to the public twelve months before the deposit, it can be registered. Unfortunately, it often happens that this period has already expired and then you seem to be outlaw.
Fortunately, here is a nice way out, so you still have rights. This is namely the unregistered Community design. You will receive three years of protection from the moment you make the model public and it is only aimed at pure counterfeiting.
This protection of three years is of course much shorter than the rights of 20 years that you get with a registered Community design, but fortunately it still offers some relief.
There are three options for establishing a design worldwide, this can be done via the Benelux model, Community model for European protection and as an international model for registration in other countries.
Most companies opt for a Community design because you get protection in one go in all member states of the European Union. This is relatively much cheaper than a Benelux model where you only get a registration in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Hereby it is also possible to make the basic registration in the Benelux or European Union, to claim priority within six months after the deposit and to register in other countries worldwide.
The design therefore receives retroactive protection in those other countries from the date of the first application.
Like a trademark registration, the model is an exclusive right . The law stipulates that you can prohibit others from manufacturing, offering, marketing, selling, delivering, renting, importing, exporting, displaying, using or stocking for any of these purposes.
In addition, you also have the right to prohibit others from using your design or design without your permission.
And it sounds very subjective, but design registration works a little different than registering a brand name. If you register a completely unique model, the protection is much broader and stronger than when, for example, you capture a new cup. Depending on that width, the protection is determined to prevent someone from just modifying one model at five points and thus getting protection alongside another model.
See Also: https://www.palomar.edu/telescope/2018/12/12/student-creators-can-benefit-from-seeking-the-services-of-inventhelp/
the protection is determined to prevent someone from just modifying one model at five points and thus getting protection alongside another model.