EU Designs

What a design protects

A design protects the appearance of a product: its shape, lines, contours, colours, texture, materials or ornamentation. This now expressly includes movement and animation, and products that are not physical, such as graphical user interfaces.¹ Registered Community designs are now called registered EU designs.²

Registered or unregistered

• Registered EU design. Lasts up to 25 years, renewed every five years.³ Registered owners can mark their products with the Ⓓ symbol.⁴

• Unregistered EU design. Arises automatically when a design is first made available to the public in the EU, but lasts only three years.³

Registration gives far longer protection, and a registration certificate to rely on.³

How we work

1. Prepare the views. We help you decide which images, and since July 2026 which video or 3D files, best show the design.⁵

2. File. EU design applications are filed directly with the EUIPO.⁶ One application can cover up to 50 designs, even across different product classes.⁷

3. Renew. We docket each five-year renewal so protection does not lapse.

What the reform changed for owners

• Creating, downloading, copying or sharing a file that records a protected design, so the product can be made, can now infringe.⁸

• Owners of registered EU designs can stop counterfeit goods passing through the EU from outside.⁹

• Design rights do not cover spare parts used solely to repair a complex product to its original appearance, provided the seller tells consumers who made the part.¹⁰

Sources
1. Regulation (EU) 2026/715 on European Union designs, Art. 4(1)–(2)
2. Ibid., Art. 1(1)
3. Ibid., Arts. 12(1), 13(2) and 64
4. Ibid., Art. 29
5. Dreyfus, EU designs: what has changed since 1 July 2026
6. Regulation (EU) 2026/715, Art. 41(1)
7. Ibid., Art. 44(1) and recital 36
8. Ibid., Art. 20(2)(d)
9. Ibid., Art. 20(3)
10. Ibid., Art. 22