The Reform Package includes the new European Design Regulation (the Amending Regulation on Community designs no. 2024/2822, EUDR) and the new European Design Directive (the Recast Directive on the legal protection of designs no. 2024/2823, EUDD).
After more than two decades of the EU industrial design protection system, which coincided with the rise of new technologies, the time for significant changes has finally arrived. The EU Design Reform aims to satisfy the growing need for accessible, future-proofed, effective and consistent protection of design rights, thus encouraging innovation and creativity in the design-intensive industries.
Designs are destined to protect the appearance of products, such as their colours, lines, shapes and decoration. Under current regulations, designs can be protected in the EU as Registered Community Designs (RCDs), national registered designs and Unregistered Community Designs (UCD), which are protected if made available to the public.
New terminology
As of 1 May 2025, the current terminology applicable to designs was abandoned and made consistent with vocabulary used in relation to EU trademarks. Therefore, from that date RCDs are called Registered European Union Designs (REUDs) , UCD are called Unregistered European Union Design (UEUDs) and Community design court is replaced with EU design court.
More importantly, the EU Design Reform opens the possibility of registering new design forms by changing the definition of a design to encompass the movement, transition and other sort of animation of design features. Also, the definition of “product” has been amended to expressively cover graphic works or symbols, logos, surface patterns, typographic typefaces and graphical user interfaces. Additionally, the definition now covers products which are materialized in a non-physical form. This means that virtual goods are now eligible for design protection.
New symbol
The right holder of the design is now able to inform the public that their design is registered by applying symbol Ⓓ on the product in which the design is incorporated, much like the ® for trademarks and © for copyrights. This not only serves as a preventive measure, but also enhances consumer awareness of design rights.
Limitation of rights
The EU Design Reform also introduces new limitations to the exclusive use rights of the design holder. Previously, the right holder could not oppose the use of a design that was carried out in private, for non-commercial or experimental purposes and for the purpose of making citations and acts of teaching. The reform adds to those limitations the exception of referential use, and use for the purpose of comment, critique or parody. To benefit from the limitation, such acts must be compatible with fair trade practices and not unduly prejudice the normal exploitation of the design. The exclusivity exceptions have been therefore approximated to those found in trademark regulations.
The reform has also further limits design exclusivity by making the repair clause permanent. As such, design protection is not conferred on designs which constitute a component part of a complex product, if the appearance of the component part is dependent on the appearance of the complex product. The exception applies only to the use for the purpose of repair of the complex product so as to restore its original appearance.
Simplification of registration procedure
The EU Design Reform simplifies the registration process by allowing filing of up to 50 designs in one application, irrespective of the Locarno Class (the classification system used to categorize industrial designs into classes and subclasses) and abolishing the 7-views limit in design applications. It has also been clarified that the design features of a product do not need to be visible at any time or during the use of the product to be registered – the design features must be visibly shown only in an application for registration (with an exception of component parts of complex products which need to be always visible).
Design protection vs copyright protection
It is also worth noting that the reform dwells on the problems arising from the lack of harmonization of copyright law rules applicable to registered designs. Under previous legislation, member states were free to decide to what extend registered designs could enjoy copyright protection. In consequence, the rules on cumulation of protection varied from state to state – the same registered designs enjoyed different level of protection depending on the legislation in a given member state. This time around, the EU legislator directly solved this issue by stipulating that registered designs are cumulatively protected as copyright works. Therefore, EU member states are no longer able to apply specific conditions for the protection of designs under copyright law. Subsequently, the holders of a registered design are able to enforce it as a copyrighted work.
Most of EUDR provisions came into force on 1 May 2025 (provisions requiring secondary legislation will be applicable starting from 1 July 2026). The EUDD is effective as of 8 December 2024 and must be implemented by member states by 9 December 2027.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of these topics and what they mean for you and your business, please get in touch with our Consumer sector and Intellectual Property experts.
