Chapter 4 Legal protection of designs in the UK: overlap with other rights Flashcards
Where is the concept of registered designs provided for?
The Registered Designs Act 1949
Where is the concept of unregistered designs provided for?
Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
What can protection under s. 1 Registered Designs Act 1949 extend to? (7)
- Shape
- Configuration
- Pattern
- Ornament
- Applied by an article by any industrial process
- Being features that are judged solely by the eye but doesn’t include a method or principle of construction
- Or features of shape which are dictated solely by the function
How is the word design defined?
As meaning the ‘appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product or its ornamentation’
When is a design eligible for protection under the 1949 Act?
- When the design is novel
2. When the design has individual character
Explain 2 situations where the design is excluded from protection.
- Previous disclosure of the design to the public
2. Features of a design that are intrinsic to its function.
What is the definition of a complex product under the 1949 Act?
Which is defined as ‘a product which is composed of at least two replaceable
component parts permitting disassembly and reassembly of the
product’.
How is a product defined under the 1949 Act?
Any industrial or handicraft item other than a computer program; and, in particular, includes packaging, get-up, graphic symbols, typographic type- faces and parts intended to be assembled into a complex product.
When is a design new?
If no identical design or no design whose features differ only
in immaterial details has been made available to the public
before the relevant date.
When does a design have individual character?
If the overall impression it produces on the informed user differs from the overall impression produced on such a user by any design which has been
made available to the public before the relevant date.
If granted, how long will the registered design be valid?
25 years
What is the advantage of obtaining a registered design?
As with patents, the issuance of a registered design right confers a monopoly in respect
of the manufacture of identical or substantially similar products.
Are there exclusions to design rigts? (3)
- The design of a product must not be a method or principle of construction – design rights only protect a characteristic of a product but not how it was made.
- The design must not contain aspects of shape or configuration of an article which:
- enables the article to fit with another article so that either article can perform its intended function, or
- is dependent upon the appearance of another article of which it is intended by the designer to form an integral part. - The design must not be a design for surface decoration – for example the colour of a product will not be protected by a design right.
Explain the Leyland exception/ spare parts exception.
Under the 1956 Act spare parts were accidentally considered as secondary copyright infringement, which was not desirable as the car repair company’s would either have to cease repairing cars or pay expensive royalties to the copyright holder.
What was considered as secondary copyright infringement under the Lely decision and why?
The drawings of the the exhaust pipe, the pipe itself is not protected by either copyright or design right.
