Brand Protection & Trade Marks - Design
Design registration is available for designs that are novel, and have individual character. In practice, most logos, including stylized words are capable of design registration, provided application is made within the first year of the creation of the design.
Registration is granted initially for 5 years, and is renewable for up to a maximum of 25 years. We can help you to check your rights, and let you know whether your design is capable of registration.
We recommend setting aside a budget for design registrations, and our website gives our prices for registering designs. The reason design registration is desirable, is that if you find that another website has copied your logo it is very difficult to do anything about it unless you have a design or trademark registration for it.
This is because although copyright and unregistered design rights also protect your designs, without your having to take any steps to obtain the rights, relying on your unregistered rights is unlikely to give you powerful enough rights to stop others copying because you will have to prove they actually copied your designs. This is quite difficult evidentially because they will argue that they did not copy your designs but just happened to come up with a similar design. If, on the other hand, you have a design registration, you will be able to stop others copying your work even if they claim they came up with the same design independently.
There is an overlap between trade marks and designs in that your device marks and logos may be registrable as designs as well as trade marks. Whether to register for both rights or just one is a matter on which you will need to take advice on a case by case basis. Some of the factors to bear in mind are that the design registration process is quicker and cheaper than the trademark registration system. Design registration provides wider protection, but is subject to a maximum 25 year term, whereas trade marks can be renewed indefinitely.
To find out more about registering your designs visit our website.
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