Design protection

Where a trademark protects your brand and a patent protects a technical functionality, design protection is your way of safeguarding the visual appearance of a product.

If you have registered your design, you will be able to stand up to copycats and prevent others from marketing goods that look like yours.

In some cases, design protection may be sufficient. However, in other cases it may be prudent to pair it with trademark registration or maybe even a patent that protects unique technical functions of your product.

Plougmann Vingtoft’s highly experienced experts can help you decide on an IP strategy that covers all IP rights that are commercially important to your company.

Design protection enhances your options on the market

Design protection puts you in a strong position for entering into licensing agreements with other firms that wish to market your product. In most instances, at least when it comes to professional dealings, a design right is actually a prerequisite for a collaboration to even be possible.

Further, owning the sole rights to a design will give you an upper hand in negotiations, if you are looking to sell your company at some point.

Contact one of our experts today, if you wish to know more about our consulting services within design protection. You can also fill out the contact form below with your inquiry, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Is a design protection sufficient?

Sometimes the answer is yes, but not always. It is therefore important to do the research properly and consider how to best protect your design and your business as a whole.

You can register both packaging, foods, clothes, furniture, manufacturing machinery, graphical designs, websites, interior design, typography and much more as a design. Technical functions are, however, not eligible for design registration – to protect a technical function, you need to apply for a patent. If you wish to register a product name or logo, you will need to look into trademark protection.

Design protection lasts up to 25 years

When a new design, which meets the requirements for a design registration, is published in the EU, it is automatically protected as an unregistered EU design for three years. This protection prevents identical copying. You could argue that publication in the EU is an introduction of the design to the world.

You can also choose to apply for an EU design registration, which can give you design protection that lasts up to 25 years. With this, you will be able to establish a broader protection of your design than the one preventing identical copying.

An application for a registered EU design right must be filed within the first year after publication. It is therefore important to incorporate the registration into your line of thinking from the very moment that you put your product on the market.

Need help?

Plougmann Vingtoft houses experienced consultants specialized in trademarks, designs and patents, which means that we can advise you on all aspects of protecting your product.

Our services comprise everything from preliminary examination to registration of your design, and IP administration.