DESIGNS

A NECESSARY TOOL

Registered designs protect the original form and appearance of products. It is a determining criterion in the purchase choice and an important budget for companies, which invest in the creation of attractive, original products.
By filing a design application, you can protect your assets and benefit from an industrial property title, which gives you the exploitation monopoly of your creations.

TIMELY ACTION IS REQUIRED

According to the French law enforced since 2001 and to the European law, a filing application must be carried out within 12 months (at the latest) after the design is disclosed to the public by the creator; no extensions of deadline are possible...
The 1883 Paris Convention makes provisions for a 6-month period of priority starting from the date of filing of the first application; during this period, extensions of the protection can be carried out abroad and benefit from the initial filing date. After this deadline, the extensions would be considered as lacking novelty.

 Cabinet GUIU assists you to manage your deadlines

THE REQUIREMENTS 

To be registrable an industrial design must be new and present its own characteristics, which both means that no identical design should have been disclosed to the public and that the whole visual impression it gives to an advised user or observer should differ from that of another design disclosed prior to the date the design application was filed.

 Cabinet GUIU provides you with the best quality advice to assess the scope of a registered design in relation to your own products, whether it be during the creation phase or in the context of a litigation.

THE SCOPE OF PROTECTION

The appearance of a product or of its ornamentation, the shape or contour, the colour, the texture or the material, can qualify for registration. Such products can be industrial, manufactured products, and especially parts designed to be assembled, packagings, graphical symbols, typographic styles.

Software and the products whose appearance is exclusively imposed by the technical function of the product, or whose exact form and dimensions are determined by the mechanical constraints of its assembling system.

 Cabinet GUIU assists you to determine the best protection strategy.

DURATION OF THE PROTECTION

The duration of a design registration is 5 years ; it can be extended for further 5-year periods up to a maximum of 25 years.

 Cabinet GUIU uses the most performing deadline-control software to monitor the maintenance of your titles.

STRATEGIES – OPTIONS

Different types of legal protection can be envisaged, depending of the product at stake and on the strategy:

- the national filing, including in France,

- the European filing (Community regulation 6/2002 of 12 December 2001)

- and also the international filing (The Haye Agreement of 6 November 1925).

These different options can be chosen independently one from the others or integrated within an evolutionary strategy.

The European filing is certainly what is today the most efficient and cost-effective solution, especially for companies present on the European market; it is simple to implement and the scope of the filing covers the whole European Union.

 Cabinet GUIU will advise and assist you in the preparation and filing of your design applications. Our IP Attorneys will represent you before the national, European and international Offices.

EXPLOITATION

The design protection partakes of the copyright. The applicant is not necessarily the creator of the design to be protected but, more often than not, the manufacturer. A written contract, whose nature will depend upon the situation, binds the creator and the person using the design and specifies what remuneration is owed to the creator.

 Cabinet GUIU drafts all the contracts connected with the exploitation of your registered designs.