What is design?
A design refers to the aesthetic aspect of an article, in particular, the features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to the article via an industrial process.

It is a monopoly awarded to the owner of a new and previously undisclosed design. It lasts for a limited period (generally up to 15 years), allowing the owner to exclude others from making, using or selling the design without his permission. Design registration is used to protect the way something looks, rather than the way it works (unless the look is required so that it works).

Design registrations are awarded by individual governments on a country by country basis. Design registrations are geographically limited in their scope, and design registrations which are ultimately granted only give rights in those countries in which they are granted.

How to obtain a design registration?
Anybody can apply for a design registration, provided he owns the design either through being the designer or through having a legal entitlement from the designer.

In order to obtain this exclusive right, design owners have to file applications showing their designs from different exterior angles.

For the most part, if protection is required in a particular country, it is necessary to apply specifically to the design registry of that country for a design registration. There is a system, called the Hague System for the International Deposit of Industrial Designs, whereby a single application gives the owner of an industrial design the possibility to have his design protected in several countries. However, only a few countries are currently party to this.

Priority
If a design owner files his first application for his design in a first country, then he has six months from that time to file applications for the same design in other countries, "claiming priority" from that first filing. The effect of this is that his application is treated in those other countries as having been filed on the same date as it was filed in the first country, for the purpose of determining novelty. It should be noted that this is not available to all countries and nationalities - usually only where the relevant countries are all members of the Paris Convention or of the World Trade Organisation (or both).

What can be registered?
Design registrations are generally intended to protect products having a new appearance. For an design to be registrable, it must, in general, have novel features of three dimensional shape and/or two dimensional pattern that are not dictated by their function or by other components with which they must fit. Many countries also require that the novel features have eye appeal. To be novel, the invention cannot have been disclosed to the public at any point in time before (although most countries have varying degrees of exceptions to this rule).