Design Registration: Protecting the Look of a Product

What does design registration protect?

A registered design protects the visual features of a manufactured article: its shape, configuration, pattern, ornamentation, or composition of lines or colours, as applied by an industrial process, where those features appeal to and are judged solely by the eye. That is the definition in section 2(d) of the Designs Act 2000. It covers three-dimensional forms, like the shape of a chair or a perfume bottle, and two-dimensional ones, like a print on a bedsheet or the pattern on a tile.

It does not protect how the product works. Section 2(d) excludes any mode or principle of construction and anything that is in substance a mere mechanical device. A hinge that opens more smoothly, or a new way of joining two parts, is a matter for patent law if it is protectable at all. A trademark and an artistic work under the Copyright Act are also excluded from the definition, so a logo is not registered as a design.

The protection is tied to the article and the class in which you register. A design for a water bottle protects that shape for bottles; it does not automatically stop someone using the same shape for a lamp base. This is why choosing the article and class correctly at the filing stage matters.

Design, trademark, copyright or patent: which one protects what?

Products often need more than one. A single item can carry a registered trademark on the label, a registered design for its shape and copyright in its packaging artwork.

Can my design be registered? The new or original test

The design must be new or original. Section 4 bars registration of a design that is not new or original, that has been disclosed to the public anywhere in India or any other country in tangible form, by use or in any other way before the filing date, that is not significantly distinguishable from known designs or combinations of known designs, or that contains scandalous or obscene matter.

"Significantly distinguishable" is the part that decides most cases. Changing the colour of an existing product, adding a small decorative line, or rounding a corner that everyone else leaves square will usually be treated as a trade variant, not a new design. Equally, combining two known designs mechanically, the top of one bottle with the base of another, is not enough unless the result has a distinct visual identity of its own.

The comparison is visual. The Controller, and later a court, looks at the design as a whole through the eyes of a buyer, comparing it with what was already available. Before filing, search the Design Office's registered designs for your class and look at what competitors already sell, online and in the market. A design that looks new to the designer may already be common in the trade.

I have already shown the product. Is it too late to register the design?

Very often, yes. Indian law has no general grace period for your own disclosure. Once the design has been shown to the public, in a launch post on Instagram, a product listing on Amazon, a catalogue sent to dealers or a stall at a trade fair, it is part of the prior art, and your own disclosure can be cited against your application or used later to cancel the registration.

There are two narrow exceptions. Under section 21, showing the design at an industrial or other exhibition notified by the Central Government (or its display there by someone else without your consent) does not destroy novelty if the application is filed within six months of the opening of the exhibition. Under section 44, an application filed in a convention country can be used to claim priority in India if the Indian application is made within six months. Neither exception helps a product that was simply put on sale.

Showing the design privately, to a manufacturer, a mould maker or a buyer under a written duty of confidence, is not publication. Get a non-disclosure agreement signed before you send drawings to a factory, especially one that also makes products for others. Our post on drafting and enforcing an NDA in India explains what such an agreement should say.

Who can apply, and who owns the design?

The application is made by the proprietor. Under section 2(j), the proprietor is the author of the design, unless the author created it for someone else for good consideration, in which case that other person is the proprietor; a person who acquires the design by assignment also becomes the proprietor. So a company that pays a freelance industrial designer to create a product shape is the proprietor under the Designs Act, which is more favourable to the commissioning party than the rule for copyright.

Even so, put it in writing. A design agreement that records the commission, the payment and an assignment of all rights in the design (and in any drawings, which carry copyright) avoids an argument later. For in-house designers, the employment agreement should say the same.

A design can be owned jointly, and foreign applicants can file through an Indian agent or advocate. Individuals, startups recognised under the Startup India scheme and small entities registered as MSMEs pay a lower official fee than other applicants, so keep the certificate ready if you qualify.

Choosing the article and the class

Since the 2021 amendment to the Designs Rules, India classifies designs under the Locarno Classification, the international system that groups articles into classes and subclasses. Each application is for a design applied to a specific article in a specific class. A chair is in one class, a lamp in another, packaging in another.

If the same shape will be used on several kinds of articles, you may need separate applications for each. Name the article precisely and in ordinary words: "bottle" rather than "container for any purpose". A vague article name invites an objection and makes the scope of the registration harder to enforce later.

Registration of screen displays, icons and graphical user interfaces has historically been difficult in India, because the Design Office has read "article" and "industrial process" narrowly. If your design is digital, take advice on current practice before you rely on design registration alone; copyright may be the better first line of protection.

What a design application needs

The application is in Form 1 under the Designs Rules 2001. Most of the work is in the drawings and the wording that goes with them.

How design registration works, step by step

The sequence is set by the Designs Act and Rules. Timelines depend on the Design Office's workload; an application without objections usually moves faster.

1. Search and prepare

   Search registered designs in the class and the market for similar products. Then prepare the representations and the statement of novelty, deciding exactly which features you are claiming.

2. File Form 1 online

   File the application with the representations and the official fee on the IP India portal. The filing date is the date of registration if the design is later registered, so file before any public disclosure.

3. Examination

   The Controller refers the application to an examiner, who checks whether the design is new, whether it is a design under section 2(d), whether the representations are adequate and whether the article and class are correct.

4. Reply to objections

   If objections are raised, they are communicated to the applicant, who can amend the representations or wording and reply in writing, and ask for a hearing. The Rules set a time limit for putting the application in order; if it is missed, the application is treated as abandoned.

5. Registration and publication

   Once the Controller is satisfied, the design is registered, a certificate is issued, and the registration is published in the Patent Office Journal. The registered design becomes open to public inspection after that.

6. Diarise the dates

   Note the ten-year expiry and the date for the five-year extension. Keep the certificate, the published representations and evidence of the launch date together in one file.

Representations and the statement of novelty: where applications are won or lost

The representations are the design, as far as the law is concerned. A court comparing an alleged copy with your registration will look at the drawings or photographs on the register, not at your product. If the views are incomplete, blurred or show features you did not mean to claim, the protection is narrower or vaguer than you think.

When Advocate B.K. Singh prepares design representations for a client, he asks the client to separate the features that make the product look different from those that are standard in the trade or that exist only for function. The statement of novelty should point to the first group. Claiming everything makes the design easy to attack; claiming too little makes it easy to copy with small changes.

Keep the drawings consistent with each other and with the product you will actually sell. If the launch model is changed after filing in a way that alters the look, the registration may not cover it, and a fresh application may be needed if the change came before publication.

Common objections from the Design Office and how to answer them

Most objections fall into a few types. The examiner may say the design is not new because a similar design is already registered or published; the reply points out the visual differences feature by feature, with side-by-side images. The examiner may say the design is functional or a mechanical device; the reply shows that the claimed features are chosen for appearance and that the product could work just as well with a different shape.

Other objections are formal: views missing, inconsistent drawings, a wrong class, an article name that is too broad, a trademark or words appearing on the representations without a disclaimer, or a missing authorisation. These are usually cured by amending the sheets. What cannot be done is adding new matter: you cannot change the design itself after filing.

Reply within the time the Office allows and attend the hearing if one is fixed. If the Controller refuses the application, an appeal lies to the High Court. In practice, most refusals are avoided by better preparation before filing rather than by argument afterwards.

How long does design registration last in India?

Ten years from the date of registration, which is the filing date (or the priority date where convention priority is claimed), under section 11. Before the ten years run out, the proprietor can apply for an extension of five more years on paying the extension fee. That makes fifteen years in all; there is no further extension.

If the extension fee is not paid in time, the registration lapses. Section 12 allows the proprietor to apply for restoration within one year from the date of lapse, explaining why the fee was not paid. The Controller can restore it if satisfied that the failure was unintentional and there was no undue delay, and the Act limits the proprietor's rights against people who used the design between lapse and restoration.

When the term ends, the design falls into the public domain and anyone can use it, though a trademark in the shape (where the shape has become a badge of origin) or goodwill protected through passing off may survive.

What counts as design piracy?

Under section 22, it is piracy for anyone, without the proprietor's licence or written consent, to apply the registered design or a fraudulent or obvious imitation of it to an article in the class in which it is registered, for the purpose of sale. Importing such articles for sale, and publishing or offering them for sale knowing the design has been applied without consent, are also piracy.

"Obvious imitation" catches copies that are not exact but are so close that the similarity strikes the eye at once. "Fraudulent imitation" catches copies made with knowledge of the registered design, even if the differences are a little greater. Courts compare the articles visually as a whole, focusing on the features claimed in the statement of novelty, rather than counting small differences.

The registration has to be in force at the time of copying, and the copy has to be in the same class of article. If your design is registered for bottles and someone uses the shape for a toy, section 22 may not help, though other rights might.

The provisions that matter in a design dispute

Suing for design piracy in Delhi NCR

Design suits are commercial disputes under the Commercial Courts Act 2015, so they go to the commercial courts at district level or, where the value is high enough, to the Delhi High Court on its original side, where the IP Division hears such matters. Where urgent interim relief is sought, the suit can be filed without first going through pre-institution mediation. Our page on the commercial courts in Delhi explains where such cases are filed.

A five-judge bench of the Delhi High Court held in Carlsberg Breweries v Som Distilleries (2018) that a claim for design piracy and a claim for passing off can be joined in one suit. That matters because a copied product often copies both the shape and the overall get-up, and the two claims protect different things.

In design suits that come to Advocate B.K. Singh, the first piece of work before filing is a prior-art search from the defendant's side: what earlier designs could the other side cite to say yours was not new. A plaintiff who has already seen the weak points can address them in the plaint, and a court asked for an interim injunction looks closely at whether the registration is likely to survive a cancellation challenge.

What if I did not register the design? Copyright and passing off

The fallbacks are limited. Section 15(2) of the Copyright Act ends copyright in a registrable design once more than fifty articles have been made by an industrial process, so a mass-produced product with an unregistered design usually has no copyright protection for its shape. In Cryogas Equipment v Inox India (2025), the Supreme Court set out a two-step approach: first ask whether the work is a purely artistic work or a design derived from it and applied to an article by an industrial process, and then ask whether the design is mainly functional or mainly visual. Drawings of a functional product sit on the copyright side only within narrow limits.

Passing off remains available if the look of your product has become associated with you in the minds of buyers, which takes time and sales. A product launched last month rarely has that reputation; a product sold for years in a distinctive shape may. The difference between these routes, and why registration usually makes life easier, is explained in our post on trademark infringement versus passing off.

For artwork that is not applied to an article industrially, such as illustrations, packaging graphics and labels, copyright continues to apply; our post on copyright registration covers it. For copies sold online, marketplace takedown processes work in a similar way to the ones described in copyright takedowns and suits.

Mistakes that cost designers their protection

• Launching before filing. Your own Instagram post, catalogue or marketplace listing can destroy novelty. File first, then show.
• Sending drawings to factories without an NDA. A manufacturer who supplies your competitor, or posts your product on its website, can turn a private design into a published one.
• Poor representations. Missing views, inconsistent drawings or photographs with clutter narrow the protection or invite objections.
• Claiming function as design. Features chosen only for how the product works are excluded, and claiming them makes the registration easier to attack.
• Choosing the wrong article or class. Protection follows the article named. A vague or wrong article name weakens enforcement.
• Forgetting the five-year extension. Once the ten years end, the extension window closes; restoration is possible only within a year of lapse.
• Relying on copyright for a mass-produced product. After fifty industrial copies, copyright in an unregistered registrable design ends.

What to do this week before you launch a new product

If the launch date is fixed, work backwards from it. The design application must be on file before the first public showing.

• Freeze the design you will launch and identify the features that make it look different.
• Search registered designs in the class and competitors' products online and in the market.
• Get NDAs signed with every manufacturer, mould maker and supplier who sees the drawings.
• Confirm in writing that your company owns the design and the drawings if an outside designer made them.
• Prepare clear representations from all views and a precise statement of novelty.
• File Form 1 online before any launch post, catalogue, listing or trade show.
• If you plan to sell abroad, list the countries and diarise the six-month priority deadline.
• Register the brand name too; a product with a copied shape and a copied name is easier to stop when both are registered.

Getting the filing right the first time

A design registration is only as strong as the application behind it: filed before publication, with clear representations, a precise statement of novelty and the right article and class. Everything you will want to do later, stopping a copy, taking down a listing or defending a cancellation petition, depends on those choices made in a few days before launch.

If your product also needs a registered name, our post on trademark registration in India, step by step explains that process, and our trademark and copyright registration page shows how we handle filings. Design and manufacturing agreements are covered on our commercial contracts and agreements page.

If you want an advocate to review your drawings and the novelty statement before filing, or to look at a copy of your product that has appeared in the market, the team of Advocate B.K. Singh at B.K. Singh & Associates can go through the papers and tell you what protection you have and what the next step should be. You can reach us through the online enquiry form.