The forgotten ‘middle child’ of IP: why design rights deserve another look

When businesses think about intellectual property (IP), patents and trade marks often get most of the attention.

Patents are the older sibling. They tend to come first in conversations about protecting innovation and new technology. Trade marks are the younger, more attention-grabbing sibling, sitting front and centre on your website, products and marketing.

Then there are design rights: the often-forgotten middle child of the registrable IP family. This may be about to change.

The government has announced plans to modernise the UK designs system, with proposed reforms covering everything from digital interfaces and animations to the way designs are examined and enforced.

Many of the changes still require legislation, so they won’t happen overnight. However, they signal an important shift in how businesses should think about their designs.

Why should tech businesses care?

For a tech start-up or small and medium-sized enterprise (SME), valuable IP doesn’t necessarily stop at the brand name, software code or underlying invention.

Think about what your customers actually see and interact with: an app interface, icons, screen layouts, animations or transitions.

The government intends to clarify that animated designs and transitions can be protected as registered designs. The UK Intellectual Property Office will also consider accepting video and 3D files as part of its wider digital transformation.

In simple terms, how your technology looks can be a valuable asset in its own right.

Better protection against copycats

The reforms also aim to tackle questionable registrations. Currently, registered designs generally aren’t searched against earlier designs before registration. The government plans to allow targeted searching and examination of some applications for novelty and individual character.

This has a real-world commercial impact. The consultation identified examples of businesses having images taken from their websites and used by others to obtain design registrations, sometimes followed by attempts to have the genuine seller’s products removed from online marketplaces.

More flexibility before launch

Another proposed change would allow registration and publication to be deferred for up to 30 months. This would give businesses greater flexibility to secure protection while keeping a new design under wraps during development, investment rounds or preparations for launch.

Time to give the middle child some attention?

For start-ups and SMEs, the message isn’t that every interface, product or animation needs registering. It’s that design protection deserves a place in the IP registration conversation.

When reviewing your IP strategy, don’t just ask ‘have we protected the technology?’ and ‘have we protected the brand?’ Ask a third question: ‘have we protected what our customers actually see?’

This article was written by Grant Heywood.