A New Era For EU Designs

New legislation governing EU designs has now taken effect, as of 1 May 2025, bringing a number of substantive and procedural changes to design protection in the European Union. These changes bring a welcome update to the previous legislation that had remained largely unaltered since the late 1990s. The new EU Designs Regulation seeks to modernise design law in Europe, and to consolidate the law and practice that has developed over the last 20 years in relation to technological developments such as 3D printing, animated graphical user interfaces, and virtual products in the Metaverse.

We have highlighted some of the key changes below:

Terminology and definitions

The new Designs Regulation brings EU designs terminology into line with EU trade marks by renaming "registered Community design" to "registered European Union design". The Regulation also introduces a new registered design symbol Ⓓ which registered design owners can now use on products and packaging to