Our experienced team is not content with first impressions. We want to see your product through your eyes — the ones that shaped its development and design process. This ensures that all defining features of your design are highlighted and receive maximum protection through registration. We also support you in documenting your design with detailed, informative representations. Because every detail counts. For this, our interdisciplinary team of lawyers with scientific and technical expertise is on hand.
To ensure the commercial success of your product, we defend your design against imitation and counterfeiting. We also review competitors’ design registrations for validity. In addition, we assist with the licensing or assignment of your design. Supported by our specialists in trade mark, copyright and unfair competition law, we safeguard your design from every relevant perspective.
The key requirements for design protection are “novelty” and “individual character”, irrespective of registration. German design law does not recognise a national unregistered design. However, by making the design publicly available within the European Union, an unregistered Community design arises, which grants protection in the EU — including Germany — for three years from disclosure. In infringement proceedings, a registered design remains the stronger position, both nationally and across the EU. First, protection for a registered design can be renewed for up to 25 years from the filing date; secondly, it can be asserted against both deliberate imitation and independent development of a similar design, irrespective of the product category indicated for the registered design.
Design protection is essentially territorial. We advise you on the right strategy for national, European or international design applications, aligned with your business objectives. Under the Hague Agreement, an international design registration takes effect in member countries as if the design had been registered directly there.
A strategic combination of IP rights raises the barriers for imitators and other infringers. If one right fails, another may catch. Design and patent protection work hand in hand: the patent protects the technical function of the product, while the registered design secures its external appearance. Equally, for protecting the three-dimensional appearance of a product, it may be sensible in a given case to file both a design and a 3D trade mark. Logos can also be protected as both design and trade mark, provided they meet the respective requirements. Tailored to your specific product, we advise you on the combination and sequencing of relevant IP rights.
