Industrial design registration

What is an industrial design?

Many enterprises devote a significant amount of time and resources to enhancing the design of their products, in order to:

Customize products to particular customer groups. Small modifications to the design of a product (eg a watch) may make it especially suitable for particular ages, cultures or social groups. While the main functions of the watch may remain the same, children and adults are likely to prefer very different designs.

Create a new 'niche' market. In a competitive marketplace, a company may develop a niche market for itself by introducing a creative design for its product that differentiates it that of its competitors. This can be equally the case for such ordinary items as locks, cups and saucers, as for potentially high priced items such as jewellery, computers or cars.

Strengthen brands. Creative designs are often combined with distinctive trademarks to enhance a company's brand(s). Many companies have successfully redefined their brand image through strong focus on product design.

In everyday language, an 'industrial design' generally refers to a product's overall form and function. An armchair is said to have a 'good industrial design when it is comfortable to sit in and we like the way it looks. Thus, for enterprises, designing a product generally implies developing the product's functional and aesthetic features while taking consideration issues such as the product's marketability and the costs of manufacturing, or the case of transport, storage, repair and disposal.

an IP law perspective, however, an industrial design refers only to the aesthetic aspects or outward appearance of a product. In other words, it refers only to the appearance of an armchair. Although the design of a product may have technical or functional features, industrial design, as a category of IP Law, refers only to the aesthetic nature of a finished product, and, therefore, is distinct any technical or functional aspects.

Industrial design is applied to a wide variety of mass-produced as well as individually crafted products: technical and medical instruments to watches, jewellery and other luxury items; household products, toys, furniture and electrical appliances to cars and architectural structures; textile designs to sports equipment. Industrial design is also applied to product packaging and containers.

As a general rule, an industrial design consists of the three-dimensional features, such as the shape of a product, the two-dimensional features such as ornamentation, patterns and lines or colour, or a combination of two or more of these.