What does design right protection cover?
Your design must be an article and therefore any 2
dimensional objects, such as carpet and wallpaper designs, will not
qualify for protection. These sorts of articles may however qualify
for protection under copyright law or registered design protection.
In addition, your design must be reasonably unique. Ordinary, everyday
designs are unlikely to acquire protection through design right.
Where your article forms part of a final product and
its design is determined by the final product (for example a part of
a car), there is no protection for the design of the part. This primarily
applies to spare parts and allows competition between manufacturers
of those parts. Competitors will however infringe design right if they
copy the design of an article (or part thereof) when there is no actual
need to do so.
