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Industrial Designs - After a century, new laws for registered designs |
Design laws passed in June this year herald a new era in the registration of industrial designs. |
Industrial designs protect the shape, configuration, pattern or ornamentation of manufactured products. |
The previous legislation protecting designs caused widespread industry concern that it was too easy to avoid infringing a registered design. In comparing designs in the new legislation, the concept of 'substantial similarity in overall impression' is critical for both registration and infringement. |
A person now infringes a registered design if the person, without the consent of the owner of the registered design, makes, imports, sells, hires or offers for sale or hire "a product, in relation to which the design is registered, which embodies a design that is identical to, or substantially similar in overall impression to, the registered design". |
A design is to be assessed from the point of view of an 'informed user' - someone familiar with the product to which the design relates. Expert evidence should become far less relevant than under the old law. The maximum term of registration has been significantly reduced from 16 years to ten years. |
peter.mcnamara@cml.com.au
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