Businesses often invest substantial resources in the development of new, innovative products, with intensive development and testing on the functionality and the aesthetic appeal of those products.
Design protection, both registered and unregistered, is used to protect the appearance of new, original and individual product designs.
Our team is involved in all aspects of effective design protection. We have worked with clients with substantial design portfolios, across a range of sectors. Our rounded experience enables us advise clients through creation, protection, exploitation and enforcement of their design rights.
We work with clients to identify products attracting unregistered design rights, and advise on the subsistence of these rights. We have experience working with clients to secure registered protection to protect key designs their offering and often increase the length of a design's exclusivity.
We also have experience of implementing licensing arrangements, and advising on validity, ownership/entitlement and infringement of design rights.
Our work includes:
managing the international registered design portfolio for clothing manufacturer R. H. Smith & Sons (Wigmakers) Ltd t/a Smiffys
advising premium fashion label ME+EM on design protection and clearance issues
providing enforcement advise to international clients including sports retailer Decathlon and mattress manufacturer Tempur-Sealy.
Creating a new product is a big deal, and we know that your business would have poured a lot of time and money into making sure it not only works, but also looks amazing. However, when the product is finally launched, a new risk may arise – someone copying your design.
That's where design protection steps in. Whether registered or unregistered, design protection helps safeguard your product’s appearance. Design rights aim to protect your investment on those original and eye-catching designs, coupled with effective enforcement strategies to keep copycats at bay.
Your team
Your design protection team
Need a helping hand to understand what designs protect? Or how registered and unregistered design rights can work together with other intellectual property rights? Or how to keep designs confidential until registration has been secured?
What about getting your products manufactured – do you need advice on licensing, tooling, and improvements to your designs? Or has someone disclosed your design, or made a copy, without your permission?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. Our team of legal experts is at your fingertips to advise you on all aspects of effective design protection.
We’ve worked with clients to cultivate and register substantial design portfolios, to protect, exploit and enforce registered and unregistered design rights, and to understand validity, subsistence and ownership of such rights.
In need of a design protection lawyer? Look no further.
At Womble Bond Dickinson we have an exceptional team of talented lawyers and business professionals who can offer guidance and find the solutions right for your business. We have both broad and niche expertise across all our UK and US offices.
Decathlon, a family-owned international sports retailer with 2080 stores in 56 countries, creates and manufactures its own products under over 20 in-house brands. We represent Decathlon's UK design portfolio, helping obtain registered design protection and advising on its design protection strategy
Barbour as exclusive portfolio manager for the fashion brand’s global trade marks and designs
Carafax, a specialist company servicing the caravan industry, including designer of market-leading and distinctive shower bar valves. We successfully contested a competitor's registered design application based on Carafax's earlier registered designs for its shower valves.
Testimonials
“Lovely people to work with, great attention, good and strategic advice, a very good counsel.”
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