UK design law is a complex area and industrial designs including computer
icons and screen displays are potentially protected by three distinct
rights:-
- artistic copyright
- unregistered design right; and
- registered design right.
Background - Previous Situation
Computer icons, software fonts, on-screen computer displays and the like may benefit from copyright protection if they possess a sufficient degree of “originality”. The threshold for establishing “originality” is relatively high and requires the expending of some independent creative effort and skill. Minor modifications to existing works are unlikely to attract copyright protection and ultimately, only the courts can decide whether something is original. Until recently, it was thought that copyright was the only form of protection available to software and web designers. This was primarily due to the general view that registered design right protection was limited to articles of manufacture or designs
