European 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.

This title shows how designs can be protected using the entire intellectual property system. It covers the protection of artistic, industrial and functional designs and examines protection under EC legislation.

The two EU instruments that govern design law – the Community Design Regulation (CDR) of 2001 and the Design Directive of 1998 – are expertly annotated in this thorough article-by-article commentary. Written by distinguished practitioners from a range of European countries, the volume builds on the two editions of the design-related portions of the much-relied-upon Concise European Trade Mark and Design Law, with corresponding case law through the end of 2022. It is the best first-stop guide to practice in the field. The commentary provides detailed guidance, taking into account the case law of the EUIPO and its Boards of Appeal and of the General Court and the Court of Justice, on the practical application of such crucial building blocks of design law practice as the following: all issues of substantive design law, from definitions to novelty and individual character, ownership of design rights, limits of protection, to scope of protection and rights conferred; all proceedings before the EUIPO, from filing design applications to registration, actions for declaration of invalidity, and all provisions governing review of EUIPO decisions, by the EUIPO Boards of Appeal, by the EU’s General Court, and by the Court of Justice; and actions for the infringement of Community designs, with a focus on jurisdiction and applicable law. The book also contains a unique collection of EU and international legislation of relevance for design protection, found in no other reference book, including the Community Design Implementing and Fee Regulations, the Enforcement of IP Rights Directive, excerpts from the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, and relevant provisions from applicable international treaties, such as the TRIPS Agreement, the Paris Convention, the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement, and the Locarno Agreement. This concise book on designs is a handy desktop companion and single reference tool for daily use by every practitioner in the EU and elsewhere who practises design law. It will be welcomed by IP lawyers, in-house counsel, and government officials involved with design policy and procedure.

The EU’s ‘Design Approach’ represented a unique attempt to protect industrial design and designers in and on their own terms. It has now been in place for more than a decade and this book, including contributions from leading international scholars, takes stock and attempts to find out what became of the Design Approach: Is it still observed; what has it achieved; how does it interact with other areas of the law; what became of the spare parts problem and how did the world respond to it?

Written by expert scholars and practitioners, this unique Research Handbook presents the state of the art in research on, and the practice of, international design law. Combining cutting-edge research with a practical approach, it examines key trends and covers key cases, regional and national laws, as well as concepts of international design protection. In particular, the U.S. framework is compared with the regime of the EU, and issues relating to the Hague Agreement are also covered.

This book is a revised and updated edition of a major work first published in 2001 under the auspices of the Intellectual Property Committee of the International Bar Association. As a comparative cross-jurisdictional analysis of the practice, theory, scope, and types of design protection, it will continue to be of immeasurable value to lawyers and others involved in industrial design. Industrial designs are particularly interesting because the laws in many countries attempt in different ways to find a balance between protection for the artistic and freedom to use the purely functional, and between the proprietary rights of the creator and the public domain rights of the competitor. The second edition is comprised of more than twenty country reports, each written by one or more prominent intellectual property lawyer(s) in the country covered. To facilitate cross-jurisdictional comparison, each report is structured according to the following sequence of topics: • new developments in each jurisdiction; • conventions and legislation; • definition of what constitutes a protectable design; • originality /novelty; • duration of protection; • infringement; • defences to infringement; • procedures for filing application for registration; and • expunging, cancelling, or varying registration. Prominent new developments covered in the second edition include the continuing impact of the European Community Design Directive, the adoption of the Hague Convention with corresponding major changes to US and Canadian design law and practice, the new German Design Law, and China's new Guidelines for examination. Each jurisdiction's currently applicable legislation, regulation, and case law is summarized and analysed.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the proposals on the European Design Regulation and Directive. It also examines the impact of the EU legislation on the regimes of the UK, France, Benelux, Germany and Italy, the key industrial jurisdictions in the Union, as well as the parts of domestic design law which remain unchanged.

Exploring the debate over the benefits of legal protection for fashion design, this book focuses on how a combination of minimal legal protections for design, evolving social norms, digital technology, and market forces can promote innovation and creativity in a business known for its fast-paced remixing and borrowing. Focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of the main US and EU IP laws that protect fashion design in the world’s biggest fashion markets, it describes how recent US case law in copyright and trademark cases has led to misaligned incentives for the industry and a lack of clear protection, while, in the EU, the CJEU’s interpretation of the pan-European design rights system has created significant overlap with copyright law and risks, leading to the overprotection of design. The book proposes that creativity and innovation in fashion derive some benefit from a limited unregistered design right protection, and that cumulation with copyright protection is unhelpful. It also proposes that there is a larger role for developing social norms relating to sustainability, the ethics of cultural appropriation, and the online shaming of counterfeiters that can also help create a fair equilibrium between protection and borrowing in fashion design.