Fundamental improvements for design protection in the EU will soon come into effect. The new legislation aims to modernise the EU design system in response to emerging technologies, including digital transformation and 3D printing. It also aims to simplify and harmonise existing design protection across the EU. However, certain changes, such as increasing renewal fees, should prompt registered design holders to review their portfolio and act quickly to benefit from potential savings before the new legislation takes effect. Many of these provisions will come into effect on 1 May 2025, with some additional provisions being applicable from 1 July 2026.
Key reforms
The new legislation brings about a broad range of changes, from revised definitions for ‘product’ and ‘design’, to new exclusive rights for registered design holders with regards to 3D printing and goods in transit. Here are the key changes to note:
1. New terminology – Community Design becomes European Union Design
The term “Community Design” will now be officially replaced with “European Union Designs”, or “EUDs” for short. This is now consistent with EU Trade Mark terminology.
2. New definitions for a design and a product
As of 1 July 2026, the new definition of a design will be:
“The appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features, in particular the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials, of the product itself and/or of its decoration, including the movement, transition or any other sort of animation of those features.”
(Underlined language shows changes to definition)
The definition has been broadened to embrace technological advances with respect to virtual products. Current legislation covers static digital designs, but this new definition will allow design registration of animated digital designs. This provides designers with the opportunity to protect visual features of digital environments, such as video games or metaverses. This may include icons, animated characters, interfaces, virtual spaces and virtual goods, for example.
The new definition of a product will be:
Any industrial or handicraft item, other than a computer program, regardless of whether it is embodied in a physical object or materialises in a non-physical form, including:
- packaging, sets of articles, spatial arrangements of items intended to form an interior or exterior environment, and parts intended to be assembled into a complex product;
- graphic works or symbols, logos, surface patterns, typographic typefaces, and graphical user interfaces.
The definition now explicitly defines a product as not only tangible products, but products in non-physical forms.
3. Renewal periods and fees
The basic period for renewing EU designs and the grace period if a design is not renewed within the basic period are changing. These changes will be effective as of 1 May 2025.
The renewal period for registered EUDs will end on the expiry date of registration (which is typically the anniversary of the filing date of the registration). The six-month grace period to renew a design then begins on the day after the registered EUD expires. Previously, the renewal period ended on the last day of the month in which a design expired, and the six-month grace period started on the first day of the following month.
For example, a registered EUD with a filing date of 15 June 2020 would expire on 15 June 2025 but would have a renewal deadline of 30 June 2025 under the traditional system. The six-month grace period would then begin on the 1 July 2025.
Under the new system, this registered EUD would have a renewal deadline of 15 June 2025 – the exact expiry date. The six-month grace period would then start on 16 June 2025.
The costs for renewing registered EUDs will also increase for the first to the fourth renewal periods, with a particularly significant increase for the third and fourth renewals.
Renewal fees are payable within the six-month period before a design expires. For current EU registered design holders with renewal fees falling due between 1 May 2025 and 31 October 2025, we advise paying these before the new rules come into effect on 1 May 2025 to benefit from the lower fee schedule.
4. Multiple EU design applications
As of 1 May 2025, the requirement of unity of Locarno class when filing a multiple EU design application will be removed. The number of designs per multiple design application will now be limited to 50 designs.
What this change means in practice is that a designer can now file a multiple EU design application which includes dissimilar products. For example, a multiple EU design application may now include designs relating to a bicycle and designs relating to clothing. Under the previous system, the designs relating to a bicycle would be included in one application, and the designs relating to clothing would necessarily be included in a separate application.
This allows designers to take advantage of the potentially significant savings associated with filing a multiple EU design application, and to simply their filing strategies.
The EU design fee will remain at the same level of EUR 350, with a uniform reduced fee of EUR 125 for each additional design in a multiple design application. .
5. New Design registration symbol
EU registered design holders will have the option to use the design registration symbol Ⓓ to raise awareness at the Union and national level of a product incorporating the registered design.
6. Enforcement: 3D printing and goods in transit
EU registered design holders will have further enforcement provisions at their disposal.
To complement the expanded designs for the terms “design” and “product”, design holders will now be able to seek to prevent unauthorised dissemination of digital files for 3D printing. Additionally, design holders will enjoy a new exclusive right to seize counterfeit goods in transit, i.e. those not intended for sale or use in the EU but merely being transported through or stored in the EU. This mirrors existing provisions for EU Trade Marks.
Both of these provisions will be effective as of 1 May 2025.
We encourage prospective and current registered design holders to consider these changes, as adapting their approach to design right protection could yield substantial benefits. Forresters’ attorneys are on hand to help navigate the EU Design reform, whether by reducing costs at filing or renewal, optimising design portfolios to take advantage of the new protection afforded to digital designs, or enforcing rights against infringers.
