Eva
Some companies appear to be registration-addicted with regards to designs.
IP Faber takes different approaches, distinguishing design to be protected by registration from one which can be protected as unregistered design under Community Design Regulation no. 6/2002.
The latter choice is prefereable for short life cycle products (i.e. fashion collection, shoes, school bags, seasonal products).
Three years of exclusive right “as from the date on which the design was first made available to the public within the Community“.
Therefore commercialization or first presentation of a product to an exhibition fair suffice for claiming this protection.
On the other hand, when it is foreseeable that a design product will strongly success on the market, IP Faber suggests to register it in order to exclusively exploit it for a longer time.
(Photo by Sämyii – Flickr)
