Are The Lights On For UK-Registered Designs?

Registered designs are not expensive or difficult to obtain for businesses and can provide strong protection over and above unregistered design protection in the UK.

That said, registered designs have had somewhat of a difficult recent history in the courts of England and Wales.  A selection of recent decisions has perhaps given the impression that registered designs can be difficult to enforce against infringers and led to some uncertainty around filing practices.

However, a recent decision in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) suggests that the tide could be about to change in favour of registered design owners.

We take a look in more detail at the case.

The Case