Design protection for free!

4 April 2010

For protection of your designs there is Automatic protection under design right and copyright laws. In summary for your information, without registration, you get the following protection:

An unregistered Design Right in the UK comes into being when you make a design document or a product. It covers elements of design such as textures and shape but does not cover surface decoration, and lasts for a maximum of 15 years.

Unregistered Design Rights are only infringed by copying.

Unregistered Community Design rights cover the same types of designs as registered UK and Community designs. Unregistered Community Designs provide protection for 3 years.

Copyright can be infringed by copying a design document, but (for anything other than an artistic work or a typeface) it is not an infringement of copyright in a design document / model to make an article to the design or copy an article made to the design, so of limited relevance.

It is worthwhile making sure all the original works, ideas, drawings, know how and general R&D is maintained and stored securely; it's extremely valuable to protect your creations, and we are more than talking to you and your team explaining why IPR (intellectual property rights) is so valuable and important.

Tim Mount is a trainee solicitor, contactable at tim.mount@lawdit.co.uk