PATENTING A MODEL OR DESIGN IN ITALY
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A special type of protection is reserved for designs, which may be subject to registration in order to protect the aesthetic appearance of a product, or a part thereof. In particular, the elements characterizing the product that can be protected by means of design registration are the characteristics of the lines, contours, colors, shape, surface texture or the materials constituting the product itself or its ornamentation, and includes the possibility of also protecting colors, or lines, which, although not relating to the shape of the product may characterize it.
When product is referred to, it means any object of craft or industrial origin including components intended to be assembled to form a complex product, packaging, presentations, graphic symbols and topographical characters, excluding computer programs.
Patenting a design in the EU
At the OHIM (Organization for the Harmonization of the Internal Market) based in Alicante, you can protect, through a single filing, a number of models whose registration will have effect throughout the Community.
The registered Community design gives your models objectively more effective protection because the actual publication of the models constitutes certain proof of disclosure, unlike in the case of national filing.
Again, with a single filing you can register an unlimited number of models, provided that they belong to the same class of goods (Eurolocarno classification).
Other forms of protection
If a design enhances the utility of the object to which it relates, a utility model patent and a design registration may be applied for simultaneously (but not in a single application).
A design that has special creative character and artistic value in itself may also benefit from copyright protection (see relevant section).
Requirements for registrability
The requirements for registrability of a design are:
- Novelty - The requirement is met when no identical design (identical is defined as differing only in insignificant details) has been disclosed prior to the date of application or priority date. However, disclosure of the design by the designer does not affect its registrability within 12 months after the date of disclosure. In addition, the novelty requirement is not affected by a disclosure that could not reasonably be known to specialized and interested circles within the European Community.
- Individual character-a design must make a general impression on the informed user that is different from the general impression made on that user by any design that has already been disclosed.
Unregistrable designs are those in which:
- the features of the appearance of the product are determined solely by the technical function of the product;
- the features of the appearance of the product must necessarily be reproduced in their exact shapes and dimensions in order to enable the product in which the design is incorporated or to which it is applied to be joined or connected with other product, so that each product can perform its function.
A great advantage of designs is the possibility of applying, in a single procedure, for protection of an unlimited number of designs as long as they fall within the same class of goods as the Locarno International Classification on Designs.
Public accessibility is immediate, unless a deferment (30 months) of the same is explicitly requested at the time of filing.
Registration of a design, in Italy, lasts 5 years and can be renewed, by paying the relevant renewal fee, for periods of 5 years up to a maximum of 25 years. If you do not want to maintain protection, simply do not pay the fee for the next five-year period.