What is Registrable as a Design?
The term “design” means the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from features which give it individual character. These features may include lines, colours, contours and the shape of the product, its texture and/or its ornamentation and/or the materials from which it is made. Packaging, “get-up”, graphic symbols, typographic typefaces, and interestingly, computer icons, are all registrable but computer programs are not. There is an exclusion of the Registered Community Design protection for non-visible parts of products, also for designs which are dictated solely by their technical function, so-called interconnections (i.e. spare parts) or designs which are considered against public policy or morality.
