Design Right Lawyers
Design rights offer powerful protection for the appearance of your product, helping to stand out to your audience in a competitive market.
We specialise in securing design rights that reinforce your competitive edge. Our expert team handles everything from registration to enforcement, leaving you free to focus on creativity and innovation.
We adapt our advice to your specific needs, ensuring your designs remain exclusive to you, and are used only by you.
Protecting your unique visual elements can boost brand recognition and raise market value, whether you are a start-up, SME or a global corporation. By choosing Panoramix as your intellectual property partner, you gain reliable support for all stages of the design rights journey.
Contact one of our expert team today to take the first step.
Client Testimonials
FAQs
What are design rights, and what do they protect?
Design rights protect the appearance of a product — its shape, configuration, pattern, texture or ornamentation — rather than how it works (that’s patents) or its brand name (that’s trade marks). In the UK you can hold a registered design, which gives stronger, easier-to-enforce protection, and unregistered design right, which arises automatically but is narrower and shorter-lived. We help you choose and secure the right mix for your products.
What's the difference between a registered and an unregistered design?
A registered design is one you apply for and put on the UKIPO register. It gives you exclusive rights for up to 25 years and is much easier to enforce, because you have a certificate and a clear date. Unregistered design right arises automatically when you create a qualifying design, costs nothing, but is shorter, narrower, and requires you to prove the design and that it was actually copied. For anything commercially important, registration is usually worth it.
How long does a registered design last in the UK?
A UK registered design lasts an initial five years and can be renewed in five-year blocks up to a maximum of 25 years. You renew on each fifth anniversary, with a short grace period afterwards. We track those renewal dates for clients so protection on a valuable design isn’t lost by oversight. Learn more about registered design renewals.
Can I register a design that I've already shown or sold?
Possibly — the UK gives you a 12-month grace period, so disclosures you made in the year before filing don’t automatically destroy your registration. But that grace period isn’t universal abroad, where prior disclosure can be fatal to protection. The safest approach is to file before you launch or reveal a design publicly. If you’ve already disclosed, talk to us quickly so we can work within the time you have.
What makes a design eligible for registration?
To register, a design must be new and have ‘individual character’ — it must create a different overall impression on an informed user compared with designs already available. Purely functional features dictated solely by how a product works generally can’t be protected by a registered design. We assess novelty before you file and advise on how to present the design to get the broadest protection.
How much does it cost to register a design in the UK?
Registering a design is one of the more affordable IP rights: there’s an official UKIPO fee per design (with reductions for filing several designs together) plus our professional fee for preparing and filing the application correctly. Official fees are reviewed periodically, so for an accurate, current figure it’s best to get a quick quote. Contact us and we’ll set out the cost for your specific designs.
Our Case Studies
Case Study: Wow Hydrate
Case Study: Escape Fitness
Case Study: British American Tobacco
Case Study: Cambridge Mechatronics
Case Study: Lincoln City Football Club
Case Study: The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys
