Designs protect the physical appearance and visual appeal of products. If you are the creator of a design, you will be regarded as the owner of that design and entitled to apply for design registration with some exceptions. If someone believes that your design is not new they can challenge it after it has been registered. To reduce the possibility of a challenge you can search and view registered designs, to get an idea of whether your design is already registered.

You apply for Registered Design Protection by filing out the appropriate application form and paying a fee. The competent patent office will send you a receipt confirming all the details you have sent and the date the office received your application. Once the patent office receives your application and fee, an examiner will check it and decide if we need to object to it. They will then send you a letter with the results of the examination within a period of time of them receiving your application. This letter will tell you if your design is acceptable. If the examiner objects to your design, you will have up to a given time limit to:

If there are relatively straightforward ways of overcoming our objections, the examiner will tell you about these in the examination report.

The Locarno Classification system is used as a means of classification for industrial designs. Designs are divided up in to classes based on what goods they will be applied to. The Locarno Classification system is based on a multilateral treaty administered by WIPO (The World Intellectual Property Organization). This treaty is called the "Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs", which came into being in 1968. The agreement is open to those states who are party to the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property.

You do not have to specify classes when you make a design application. The assigned examiner will do that for you as part of our examination of the application.

In some cases, you can also apply in writing to have a formal meeting (a hearing) with a Hearing Officer who is a senior official in the Designs Registry. At the hearing, you will have the opportunity to put forward your case which will allow the Hearing Officer to make a decision on the future of your application.

You can either withdraw your application or we will write to you telling you that it has been refused. The patent office will also refuse your application if you do not reply to the examination report by the deadline that the office gives you.

If the application is successful, the patent office will register your design in the national and/or regional Designs Register; and publish your registration details in Designs Journal.