TEXT 4.4 INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

An artistic or design solution for an item defining its appearance is considered to constitute an industrial design.

In daily life, design usually means the appearance of the product in whole relating to its functionality. An armchair, for instance, is considered to have a good design if it is comfortable for sitting in it and looks good. In business designing of a new product usually means development of its functional and aesthetic features subject to the aspects such as its selling on the outlet, production cost or ease of transportation, storage, repair and utilization.

However, in terms of intellectual property an industrial design concerns only ornamental or aesthetic aspect of the product. In other words, as regards the armchair, it only relates to its appearance. Although a design of the product may have technical or functional features, industrial design as a category of intellectual property relates only to aesthetic nature of final product unlike any technical or functional aspects.

Industrial design is crucial for a wide variety of industrial or handicraft goods and fashion industry: from technical and medical equipment to watches, jewelry and other luxuries; from cookware, toys, furniture and household appliances to vehicles and buildings; from textiles to sports goods. Industrial design is also important for packages, containers and appearance of products.

As a rule, industrial designs can be:

•three-dimensional, such as the shape of a product;

•two-dimensional, such as ornaments, drawings, outlines and colours of a product;

•combined, corresponding to the combination of one or several three-dimensional or two-dimensional industrial designs.

Industrial designs are what make an article attractive and appealing; hence, they add to the commercial value of a product and increase its marketability. When an industrial design is protected, the owner – the person or entity that has registered the design – is assured an exclusive right and protection against unauthorized copying or imitation of the design by third parties. This helps to ensure a fair return on investment. An effective system of protection also benefits consumers

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and the public at large, by promoting fair competition and honest trade practices, encouraging creativity and promoting more aesthetically pleasing products. Protecting industrial designs helps to promote economic development by encouraging creativity in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, as well as in traditional arts and crafts. Designs contribute to the expansion of commercial activity and the export of national products. Industrial designs can be relatively simple and inexpensive to develop and protect. They are reasonably accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises as well as to individual artists and crafts-makers, in both developed and developing countries.

In most countries, an industrial design must be registered in order to be protected under industrial design law. As a rule, to be registrable, the design must be “new” or “original”. Countries have varying definitions of such terms, as well as variations in the registration process itself. Generally, “new” means that no identical or very similar design is known to have previously existed.

In the Republic of Belarus, like in most countries, in order to obtain protection under the legislation on industrial designs an industrial design must be registered. An application has to be filed with the national intellectual property office of the country where protection is sought so that an industrial design was registered.

The application materials must be drawn up in compliance with the following normative legal acts:

•the Law of the Republic of Belarus “On Patents for Inventions, Utility Models and Industrial Designs”;

•the Regulations on the Provision on Application Drafting Procedure for Industrial Design Patents, Examination and Decision Making Thereof;

•Resolution of the State Committee on Science and Technology of the Republic of Belarus of July 5, 2018 No 15 “On Establishment of Forms of Documents for Industrial Design Patents”.

It should be particularly noted that some countries or entire economic regions, such as the European Union, provided the possibility to obtain limited protection for unregistered industrial designs valid during 3 years from the date of publication in the European Union of information on the industrial design (in the Republic of Belarus only registered industrial designs are protected).

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Unregistered industrial design gives to the enterprises the possibility of preliminary testing of their products on the market, without spending time and resources on registration of all available designs, many of which will possibly not be in demand and succeed among consumers. Some designs do not "live" long on the market, especially fashion items. For such products, unregistered designs are a good alternative. However, after manufacturing of the product designers have at their disposal a period of up to one year to carry out registration. The protection which an unregistered design enjoys is weaker because as compared with the registered design such rights are much more difficult to enforce and the term of protection is less, only 3 years against 25 years, provided for registered designs in the European Union countries.

Unregistrable in the Republic of Belarus are:

•solutions that do not meet the requirements of novelty and originality;

•solutions, the characteristics of which are determined exclusively by the technical function of the product; such technical or functional features of the design may be protected, depending on the features of each case, as other industrial property objects (such as inventions or utility models);

•solutions that are contrary to public interests, principles of humanity and morality;

•architectural objects (including industrial, hydrotechnical and other stationary installations), except for small architectural forms;

•printed matter as such;

•objects of changeable shape from liquid, gaseous, granular and similar substances.

The creator of a design (i.e. the designer), in the absence of specific circumstances, is usually the owner of the industrial design. Yet in most countries, if an employee of an enterprise created an industrial design in compliance with the conditions of the employment agreement, i.e. during working hours and in the framework of their duties, the design itself and the respective rights to it will belong to the employer. Otherwise, a written agreement on concession of rights may be required for the employee to its transfer.

If the industrial design is created by a designer hired by contract, the rights usually belongs to the enterprise that charged the designer with creation of this industrial design. In such cases the industrial design is

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considered to be created by a person that charged the designer with its creation and that thereby is the owner of the rights. Confusion at a further phase can be avoided if the issue of ownership is resolved in a contract with a designer.

The term of protection of a registered industrial design varies in different countries, but is usually at least 10 years (although it is often longer). For example, 14 years for the USA and up to 25 years for the European Union. In many countries, after the expiration of 5 years the owners of the rights are required to renew the term of the industrial design protection.

In the Republic of Belarus, the industrial design patent is valid for 10 years and can be extended for another 5 years.

Vocabulary

I.Answer the following questions.

1)What is an industrial design?

2)What types of an industrial design can be?

3)In what case is an industrial design registrable?

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4)In compliance with what legal acts must the application be drawn up?

5)What are the advantages of an unregistered industrial design?

6)What is the period of an industrial design protection?

7)What industrial designs are unregistrable?

8)Who is the owner of the industrial design?

II. Give the antonyms of the following words.

3)Entity –

III. Give the synonyms of the following words.

3)Exist –

IV. Translate the following legal acts into English.

−Закон Республики Беларусь «О патентах на изобретения, полезные модели и промышленные образцы»;

−Положение о порядке составления заявок на патенты на промышленные образцы, экспертизу и принятие решений по ним;

−Постановление Государственного комитета по науке и технологиям Республики Беларусь от 5 июля 2018 года № 15 «Об утверждении форм документов на патенты на промышленные образцы».

V.Translate the following text into English.

Насколько обширна защита промышленного образца?

Как правило, охрана промышленного образца ограничивается страной, в которой предоставляется охрана. Гаагское соглашение о международной регистрации промышленных образцов, административное соглашение ВОИС, предлагает процедуру

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