Registered designs are more a marketing than a technical form of protection.  It has to do with the shape and appearance of a product but not its functional features.

Important aspects of design registration are:

1. It provides monopoly protection and has similar novelty features to those that apply in the patent system.
   
2. The Design Act, which came into force in July 2002, provides among other things that protection is now for the design itself rather than the product.  Graphic symbols, which were not previously allowable, are provided for in the Act.  Companies may therefore register brands and logos under these provisions in addition to what can be done under trade mark law.
   
3. European Community Registered Design -  This is akin to the Community Trade Mark and permits a design to be simultaneously registered in all EU countries by means of a single application.
   
4. Unregistered Design Rights - These provide for a short term form of copyright in three dimensions for industrial designs.  In the UK, it is specifically provided for in national legislation and has a term of ten years from the time that the product was placed on the market.  Copying of spare parts does not infringe such design rights.  A recent EU regulation (in force in Ireland since March 2002) has introduced a design right in EU countries other than the UK but the term is three years.

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