All of your efforts to give your product a distinct and attractive design have their price. The design drafts can be particularly expensive, and the costs for specimens and prototypes must be given consideration as well. In view of these investments, and keeping your competitors in mind, it is highly recommendable to legally safeguard your own creative ideas and performances to the best possible degree. In this sense, the design patent is ideal as a protection right. By adopting this approach you protect the
original design, the aesthetic and visual exterior design of your product against imitation by others. In order to obtain a design patent, the design which you have developed must be
- distinctly characteristic.
on the date of registration.
For a design patent, a six-month novelty period of grace applies. In the sense of this regulation a design is even then regarded as being 'new' if it has, for example, been presented at a fair and then registered by the legitimate applicant within the grace period of six months.
