Design Protection

Design occupies an important place in the cultural world of today. Against this, there have been manifold techno-legal approaches on the part of the major European legislatures to the issue of the protection of works of design. The Community proposals for a Directive and Regulation in this area are a response to the need, widely felt in various sectors of the design world, for a homogeneous and systematic protection of design works. These initiatives should however be considered in the light of the many interests at stake and the various solutions put forward in the wake of the Community's past experience in the fields of patents and trademarks.

Considers S. 1237, to establish copyright-like protection for original ornamental designs.

An easy-to-understand guide for designers on the legal topics that deeply affect their everyday professional activities, Become a Successful Designer provides designers with ways to protect and handle their intellectual property rights. Focus groups are all kinds of designers of the product, furniture, interior, fashion, textile, communications, graphics, and computational design areas. The authors Joachim Kobuss, Alexander Bretz and Arian Hassani explain the legal framework and the possibilities to act in that field from a completely new point of view. The law and its effects on the individual designer are described in the context of designers’ everyday practice. Here, the legal aspects of design do not appear in incomprehensible legalese but are rather shown as a strategic instrument for designers which can be fun to handle. All topics are discussed from an international and general viewpoint – due to the increasing globalization in the design fields.