ARTICLE
10 January 2022

By Design: Update On Registered Design Filing At The UK IPO

H
HLK

Contributor

HLK is a global cooperation combining Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP and HL Kempner Partnerschaft mbB and provides a full suite of IP services advising across the entire IPR Lifespan™ in all technical and scientific disciplines. With offices in London, Bristol, Munich, Leeds, Glasgow, and Guangzhou (China), HLK provides IP services across the globe. HLK’s resources and expertise are exclusively dedicated to IP protection: safeguarding the inventions, creative designs, brand identities and other innovations of its clients. HLK advises on the strategy, identification, protection, opposition and appeal, exploitation and enforcement of IP rights, and defends its clients from allegations of infringement by focusing on acquiring competitive advantage for its clients. HLK is privileged to work with some of the most exciting and forward-looking businesses in the world which are at the forefront of innovation and product development in their various spheres.
Following a referendum in the UK in 2016, the UK's official membership of the European Union ended in January 2020...
UK Intellectual Property
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Following a referendum in the UK in 2016, the UK's official membership of the European Union ended in January 2020, triggering the start of an 11-month transition period which was relevant for various IP rights, including UK registered designs.

Prior to the UK's departure from the EU, a Registered Community Design (RCD) (also known as an EU design) would cover the UK. To ensure that rights from existing RCDs continue to be protected in the UK, the UK Government agreed to create an equivalent "cloned" registered UK design for all existing RCDs.

Applicants with EU design applications that were pending on 1 January 2021 were able to file for an equivalent UK right and claim the earlier filing date, as long as the so-called "re-registration" was filed by 30 September 2021.

Throughout 2021, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) has been updating the UK design register with all the new cloned UK design registrations. However, some design owners had reported that their UK re-registered designs were not appearing on the UK design register. It is understood that the UK IPO have investigated the omissions and that the process of updating to include the remaining cloned designs is underway.

The changes to EU and UK design law since the UK left the EU have, perhaps unsurprisingly, had a large effect on the number of design applications filed in the UK, as many applicants now file concurrent EU and UK design applications to ensure thorough European protection for their designs. Design filing data from the UK IPO shows a large increase in filings of UK design applications from January 2021, with over twice the number of UK design applications filed in January 2021 compared to January 2020. Filing numbers peaked at over 9,500 as the re-registration deadline approached in September, and the monthly average for 2021 (excluding September's peak) is around 5,700, compared to a monthly average in 2020 of around 2,600.

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The Designs team at Haseltine Lake Kempner and our associated German entity, HL Kempner PartmbB, continue to act for clients before both the UK IPO and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EU IPO).

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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