Doing business successfully starts with registration
“Of course as a furniture manufacturer we register new furniture or lighting designs. After all we want to protect our original designs. We also work together on a regular basis with furniture designers who often have their own small businesses. Sure, they are very busy but that is no excuse to forget to register, and therefore protect, their beautiful designs.”
Why register?
Whether you have a large company, are starting up a business or are a freelance designer, you have to protect the exclusivity of your designs which are the result of your financial and creative efforts, so that they cannot be copied by others. The exclusive right to a design is acquired not merely by being the first to use it, but by filing it (an exception to this is the so-called non-registered Community Design).
By registering your designs, you can take action against infringements made by third parties. In particular, the exclusive right means you can take action against the use (including the manufacture, provision, trade, sale, supply, rental, import, export, exhibition and use, or the stocking for one of these purposes) of a product in which the design is incorporated or to which the design has been applied and which has the same (external) appearance as the registered design, or which does not make any other general impression on informed users, with due regard for the degree of freedom the designer has in developing the design.