Upgrade Your Legal Skills in Intellectual Property
The design of your product, and its packaging, gives your products a unique advantage over all others. After all, the packaging of a product is one of the main elements attracting consumers to your products. It makes them stand out. But, before you unleash your creativity and make exceptional designs, you should consider the following 5 things to protect your designs from being stolen.
- How to Call An Industrial Design Your Own?
- What Classes Do You have To Register Under?
- Which Countries Should You Register In?
- How to Register in Many Countries at once and Save?
1-What is an Industrial Design?
Industrial designs are deigns used by different industries for their product or product packages. They are defined as new designs that are industrially applicable and are either:
- An array of lines with or without color, or
- A three-dimensional form.
The definition of industrial designs is so broad under Egyptian law, it includes the design of the product itself like a piece of furniture, a carpet design, jewellery or a bag.
Examples of Product Packaging – Industrial Designs
2. How to Call An Industrial Design Your Own?
You can apply to register an industrial design with the Industrial Designs Office. But first, your design should satisfy certain conditions: (1) It has to be new and unpublished, (2) it has to be industrially applicable, i.e. can be used in industry and not a mere aesthetic or artistic work, and (3) it cannot be functional i.e. the design is essential for the product to perform a certain function, such as the basic design of a chair.
To be new the design should be new to the market, and have not been subject of an application to the Industrial Designs Office by another person. If the design was published (in an advertisement or press release or offered in the market) before the date of the application, then the designer will lose the right to register the design in the designer’s name, and the design is only protected by copyright (which is a weaker protection compared to industrial design). Publication after filing an application to register an industrial design in one of the member countries (in the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO), gives you six months to disclose and use your design in the market before you have to file the application with the Egyptian Industrial Design Office. It also loses newness, if the design is substantially similar to a registered industrial design, even if it will not be used for the same class of goods.
