Revisions to Directive on the legal protection of EU Designs

Following the entry into force of a new Directive and an Amending Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on 8 December 2024, changes to the law providing for the protection of designs in the European Union (EU) will be introduced in phases on 1 May 2025 and on 1 July 2026. The changes which will be introduced aim to make it easier and cheaper to register designs at the EU level and to harmonise procedures between the European and national systems.

The most important changes which will come into force in the first phase on 1 May 2025 are as follows:

- The term "Community design" will be changed to “European Union design (EU design or EUD)”, so bringing the terminology into line with EU trade marks. A new marking symbol, Ⓓ, will also be introduced.

- The term "design" will be considered to refer to the "form of appearance" of a product.

- In future, the form of appearance will expressly include features of "movement, transition or any other kind of animation of these features". Animations could already be protected with graphic representations under the previous legislation, but now other forms of representation can also be used.

- The definition of a “product” is extended to explicitly include non-physical items, such as 3D printed designs and digital designs (but excluding computer programmes). Provisions will be made for submitting video files, which will make the protection of animated designs clearer.

- The new legislation states that design features can only be protected if they are visibly displayed in the application. However, the design features do not have to be visible during the entire use of the product in order to receive protection.

- Spare parts or components of complex products (e.g. car body parts) will not be eligible to receive design protection, if they are used exclusively for repair purposes to restore the original appearance of the product.

- Owners of EU design rights can prevent counterfeit products from being transported through the EU or temporarily stored there, even if they are not intended for sale in the EU.

- In addition to the physical imitation of a protected design, it is now also prohibited to create, download, copy, share or distribute digital files or software that could be used to produce an imitation of the design. Specific exceptions to what constitutes infringement are stated in the new legislation, namely that it is permitted to use the EU design if it is necessary to identify or refer to a product as an original of the right holder, or if it is used for comment, criticism, or parody.

- The official fees for filing and renewing design applications are being revised. Renewal fees will increase on a sliding scale through the 5-yearly periods of protection to ensure that designs still on the register after a maximum of 25 years will be those that are still considered worth protecting by the proprietor. The basic renewal period will now be the six-month period ending on the date of expiry of the registration (and not the last day of the month in which protection ends).

- The revised law removes the requirement that all designs in a multiple design application must fall within the same Locarno classification. This will allow a greater variety of designs to be included in a single application (with a limit of 50 designs per application).

- The maximum number of protected views of a design is being increased beyond the current number (7).

- Applications for EU designs can no longer be filed through national offices. All applications must now be filed directly with the EUIPO.

We will post further news before the next phase of introduction of the new provisions takes place in 2026.