Designs Practice Notice (DPN) 01/22: Designs Journal and online search facility
Published 21 September 2022
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/designs-practice-notice-dpn-0122-designs-journal-and-online-search-facility/designs-practice-notice-dpn-0122-designs-journal-and-online-search-facility
1. What?
This DPN is to inform customers who use the UK registered design system that the IPO has increased the information available in both the Designs Journal and on our online search tool.
2. Why?
Feedback has demonstrated that our customers would like more information available about UK registered designs. In response, we will now make the date of grant and date of publication available for all UK national registered designs.
3. What is changing?
Previously, we published the application date, the registration date (the registration date being considered as the date on which the original application was made, or was treated as having been made), the indication of product and corresponding Locarno Classification, the owner or agent, the design status, and the renewal date. However, if a specific request was received, we would provide our customers with the date a design was granted. Customer feedback has highlighted that this information should be more readily available. Due to the significance that the date of grant has, especially in respect of the ability to bring infringement proceedings, this date will now also be published in the Journal and in our online searching tool. We have also added the publication date; for UK national filings this is the date the design was published by the IPO.
4. What about “re-registered designs” following the UK’s exit from the EU?
For designs that were registered in the EU as a Registered Community Design (RCD), or as an International Registration that was protected in the EU at the end of the Transition Period, there will be no date of grant available. Information relating to RCDs and International Designs can be found on Designs View and Hague Express. This approach has been taken because section 18 of the Registered Designs Act 1949, which sets out the Registrar’s obligation to grant a certificate of registration when the design is registered, has been disapplied for re-registered designs and re-registered International Designs.
The date we record as the publication date for these re-registered designs will be the date the corresponding RCD or International Registration was published on Designs View or Hague Express.
5. Timing
Publication and grant dates are now available for all new domestic filings going forward. Over the coming months, we will be adding publication dates and grant dates to existing registered designs and publication dates to re-registered designs.