The UK Intellectual Property Office has published guidance entitled “Changes to unregistered designs from 1 January 2021”. The IP Federation welcomes the rights and measures set out in the guidance as largely meeting our previously-stated position, including the creation of the supplementary unregistered design (SUD) which will go part-way to compensate for the loss of unregistered Community design (UCD) which is a particular concern for certain sectors of the UK industry.

The IP Federation policy position regarding the SUD may be summarised as follows:

• Businesses will benefit from improved certainty if the SUD mirrors the UCD exactly.
• Businesses will benefit from a reciprocal agreement between the UK and the EU which ensures that disclosure in either the UK or EU attracts both SUD and UCD.

For full details, click HERE.

To see all our policy papers, click HERE.