Patents are the sole ownership rights to a Patent holder’s original, revolutionary invention. It’s usual practice to submit a Patent application for a new creation. New tools, materials, techniques, or ways of doing something are all examples of inventions. You will have sole ownership of your creation if you have a Patent. Once you get a Patent for your invention, you have the exclusive rights to use it or destroy it as per your wish. Design registration also protects the shape or design of your product or appearance. It safeguards your design and restricts others from using it. Moreover, design and Patent totally different forms of intellectual property rights.
What is a Design and Patent?
Let’s Understand The Meaning Of Design And Patent:
- Patent
A Patent is merely a registered and exclusive right you have established over a new and inventive creation. It is a reasonably typical strategy to use to safeguard innovation. An innovation can be anything novel, including a tool, material, procedure, or way of doing something. You, the Patent holder, will have the sole business rights to your creation if you have a Patent right. You can gain profit from your creation till the time you have the Patent granted for your creation.
- Design
A design safeguards a product’s aesthetic appeal. The visual appeal must be recognizable and consider various factors, including form, arrangement, patterns or ornamentation, and colour. Because design rights protect a product’s look is protected by design rights, the item in issue must be:
- A product, not an idea,
- a manufactured or handcrafted item
- Produced to earn profit
Design rights do not cover company names and logos because they only cover a product’s or object’s outward appearance. You must apply for a trademark if you want to safeguard your business name or logo design.
Why Is There A Need To Preserve Innovation?
A responsible and thoughtful owner, proprietor, or author will put the security of their work first. We cannot afford to lose it or allow it to be misused by someone else when we effectively create something that we think will be monetarily advantageous to us or that we plan to use as a source of income.
Difference between Design and Patent
Although both design and Patent are protection rights, they safeguard distinct parts of innovation. The distinctions between Design and Patent are described below.
- Different Types of Protection: What a Patent will protect and what design rights will protect vary significantly. Patent protections safeguard a product’s operation, process, or mechanism. Design safeguards a thing’s aesthetic appeal. In other words, approved designs protect the appearance of a specific product or object, whereas Patents protect ideas and concepts. It’s interesting to note that you can file for the same item’s design and Patent protection. Thus, a Patent and a design may protect distinct features of a single object.
- The Difference in Registration Cost: Filing a design typically costs much less than filing a Patent. The Patent application is quite demanding, which accounts for a significant portion of the application cost disparities. Applications for Patents can take a long time to complete and require precise specifications, making them more costly than applications for designs. Additionally, yearly renewal costs must be made to keep your Patents enforceable. In contrast, the design registration is valid for a period of five years, and then you will have to pay the renewal fee and use it for the next five years.
- The Difference in The Duration of Protection: Neither a Patent nor a filed design gives an indefinite term of protection. The protection period granted to design rights is typically much shorter than those granted to file Patents because design rights have a lower registration expense than Patent registration.
The maximum protection term is ten years after applying to register a design right. The greatest amount of time a filed Patent is protected is 20 years. The highest time of protection will be 25 years if the invention being filed is a “pharmaceutical substance” as well.
- The Difference in The Registration Process: The process of real filing varies significantly depending on whether you are registering a Patent or a design. The prerequisites for registering a copyright can be equally strict. Unfortunately, the registration period for Patent registration can also be considerably lengthier (at times, years) than that for design registration due to the laborious procedure involved in filing a Patent. (Usually months).
Period of Protection of Design and Patent
According to intellectual property enforcement and protection rules, a design can be secured for a period of five years with the potential for an additional fifteen years of protection. In contrast, a Patent can typically be submitted for a period of twenty years. Both require a comprehensive analysis to ensure the original product is unconnected to existing designs and Patents. During the examination process, most owners battle to decide whether to seek a design or a Patent to secure their inventions for a predetermined period. Understanding the requirements and importance of both will help you determine if you should take Design registration or Patent.
Factors Influencing Registration of Design and Patent
A thorough examination is required as part of the Patent registration procedure, but only the novelty and originality of the design must be demonstrated to file a design. Because the registration authorities cannot limit the functions and processes of an innovation that can be put to public use and benefit, the possibilities of a rejected Patent are higher than those of a design. A design is better than a Patent due to expense because the Patent registration process is much more expensive. Still, a design registration only protects the shape of the design of your product, whereas a Patent protects your whole innovation.
Infringement Proceeding of Design and Patent
As Patents are so expensive, the relief requested in court is frequently favoured concerning a product’s design rather than a Patent during infringement procedures. In addition, if a Patent owner sues someone for violating their Patent by copying it, the court will begin an investigation that will take a long time and could cost the offended party money.
For instance, if a party asks for an injunction order, which is a stay order to prevent the infringer from manufacturing the product, the court will examine the product before granting the temporary or permanent injunction. When it’s granted, the Patentee might suffer a loss of goodwill in the market because a copy of their product is already available. Consumers might be reluctant to risk their money on something when a fake version is available.
Conclusion
Understanding whether you shall go for a design or Patent registration can sometimes be challenging. Therefore, make sure to select the right one for you. Furthermore, you can take both design and Patent registration per your requirements. Consulting with an IP specialist is always a good idea if you’re considering filing a Patent or a design right. Both Patents and design rights provide different levels of security for different categories of intellectual property.
Corpbiz has experienced professionals who are experts in the field of IPR and can guide you better along with assisting you in all the legalities that may come to your make while applying for intellectual property[1].
