How to Register a Design in India

Our globally prominent and fast progressing IPR law firm located in Delhi (India)is now quite famous and popular for expert, swift, and economical legal services for all categories of intellectual property, essentially covering industrial designs under all classes. Our updated, flawless, responsible, and brisk design registration services are available at national and international levels in countries worldwide. At international level, ours punctilious and superb services for design registration are provided under the Hague Agreement (administered by the International Bureau of WIPO), TRIPS Agreement of WTO, Berne Convention (modified in Paris), and the European Union's Community Design. In ours this highly informative and generous web article, we are providing satisfying details about how to register a design in india, anywhere in the whole country.

What is an Industrial Design?

An Industrial Design depicts the features of any particular shape, contour, configuration, or pattern, etc., which are used in the production of an industrial article, in order to make the product highly efficient in certain functionality, durable, aesthetic, user-friendly, economical, strikingly impressive to the customers, and so on. Industrial designs cover both two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes, figures, contours, and configurations. An industrial design ranges from beautifying lines and patterns on a metallic or fiber plate, or shape of a kettle handle, to contour of a machine part or a car. Thus, industrial designs are essential, immensely significant, and vital constituents of all products, objects, and articles which are mass produced in industries. The literary and artistic designs in general, are not counted as industrial designs, such as calendars, greeting cards, dressmaking patterns, industrial or residential plans and layouts, layout designs of integrated circuits, etc. Proper and flawless registration of an industrial design, recognizes and protects the unique creations of the inventor/designer, and grants the creator certain legitimate rights regarding the industrial and commercial uses of the registered design, maintenance of exclusive ownership, and proper and complete protection of the same within the jurisdictions of the Designs Office, against misappropriation of or infringement upon the registered design by other people or business entity.

Essential Elements of An Industrial Design

In India, design registrations are governed and controlled as per the Designs Act of 2000 and the Designs Rules of 2001. To be acceptable for registration under these Acts, a design must have the following main characteristics:

• It must be new and unique in shape, contour, composition of lines or colors, pattern or ornamentation, or materials used, etc.
• The design must be distinctly different from all previously registered and filed designs in the Prior Art.
• The concerned industrial product bearing the design, should be capable of being produced in bulk using certain industrial processes, and sold to the market individually.
• The features of the design in the finished product, must be perceptible clearly through naked eyes.
• The design must not be identical or objectionably similar to any Trademarks described in the new Trade Marks Act of 1999; and any artistic marks mentioned in the section 2(c) of the Indian Copyright Act of 1957.
• The design should not bear any scandalous or obscene matter or figure.
• The design must be ingeniously created for good or better functionality, usefulness, economy, or durability.

Class of an Industrial Design

To facilitate perfect, systematic, and prompt registration, prosecution, and opposition of any specific design applied to any particular product, industrial designs are broadly classified into 32 classes, most of which are further divided into sub-classes. Information about this design classification (as per the Locarno Agreement) is given in the Third Schedule of the Indian Designs Rules of 2001. Any particular design registration application can only contain one class number (together with sub-class) and one design.

Designs are classified based on the individual function of the articles to which these (designs) apply. Again, the name of the article must be well-known to the people, trade, or industries. In case, the name of the article for which the design is being registered, is unfamiliar to people or industries, then functions of the article is to be mentioned for the purpose of design classification. If the article is a chair or sofa-cum-bed, its design class number is 06-01 (01 representing the sub-class). Similarly, a design applicable to a toothbrush has been classified into the class 04-02. And, the design of a calculator is represented by the class 18-01.

Design Registration in India

In all across India, all types of industrial designs are registered, regulated, and protected as per the rules and provisions given in the Indian Designs Act of 2000 and the Designs Rules of 2001, together will amendments made in year 2008. In the sections below, provided is detailed information regarding how to register a design, anywhere in India, for doing secure and profitable business in any desired economic field. For a long successful period, ours internationally reputed IPR law firm of India has been hugely popular and highly preferred regarding expert and swift design registration in india, to serve individuals, business entities, and professional firms which are located in all around India and countries abroad. The application for design registration can be preferably filed by the inventor/applicant, or with support of a mellowed and well-experienced design lawyer or a reputed patent agent. However, for those applicants who are located in outside India, they must employ a patent agent or lawyer who resides in India.

Procedure for Design Registration in India

The entire procedure for design registration encompasses the tasks of creation of a unique design; checking its uniqueness and acceptability by going through the Register of Designs, and the databases of the filed applications for design registration in the country; identification of the class of the newly created design; preparing the representation (specification) of the design; filing the application for design registration; making prosecution for design registration; and tackling cases of design opposition.

The Register of Designs is maintained updated by the Design Wing of the Head Patent Office in Kolkata. This, register keeps detailed information about all previously registered designs in entire India, together with the name and address of the related proprietors, and design number, class number, filing date, reciprocity date, etc of the designs. Thorough and scrupulous inspection through this register of designs, can be made using Form-5 and making payment of INR-500/- to the Controller of Designs, Kolkata.

On receipt of the filed application for design registration, the design wing of the concerned regional patent office conducts meticulous and scrupulous examination of the design specification and verifies authenticity of all documents enclosed. If any defects are found, these defects will be communicated to the applicant or his agent for rectification. After being satisfied, the application is then published in the Patent Office Journal to know the views of the owners of all previously registered designs. If no objection is raised by any of them, then, the design is finally accepted for proper registration.

Filing Application for Design Registration

An application for design registration can be filed with the Design Wing of any concerned zonal Patent Office of India located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chenai, or with the head Design Office in Kolkata. The following are the main documents and particulars for design registration in india:

• A well filled-in-up Design Application Form-1.
• Prescribed design registration fee amounting to INR-1000/-.
• Four copies of the Representation of Design. The representation of design should be prepared on a highly durable white paper of A4-size, with a margin of one and half inch on all sides. The drawings and sketches should be shown in isolation and with a sufficient scale, in order to make all features of the design clearly and accurately visible. Different views of the design are highly appreciated.
• A Statement of Novelty and Disclaimer (if any), in order to specify claim.
• The Power of Attorney (POA) (if necessary)
• Priority Documents (if any)

Validity of Design Registration and its Renewal

Validation and recognition to any registered design in all across India, is initially obtainable for a time-period of only ten years, counted from the date of its registration or the priority date. In order to acquire recognition and governmental protection to the registered design, and avail all rights granted to the inventor/owner, the duration of validity is to be extended regularly in terms of a five-year period, through the Form-3. The prescribed governmental fee for design renewal is at present INR-2000/-, which is to be remitted to the Controller of Designs in the concerned zonal design office. The due date for renewal is well before the elapse of 10 years from the date of initial registration, or five years from the date of previous design renewal.