Design Patents Year in Review – Global Shifts in Design Law and Policy

2024 was a year of both big leaps and incremental advances in design law and practice globally. Years-long efforts came to fruition in the European Union and internationally with the Design Law Treaty, adopting significant advances and heralding greater global harmonization. China, Ukraine, and Canada all took steps forward by improving partial design examination, adopting partial design, and extending protection to buildings, respectively. But not every development was a step forward. The United States laid out guidelines for examining computer-generated designs that more or less maintained an archaic status quo—not yet catching up with the rest of the world in protecting modern digital interface designs outside the context of a traditional display screen. This summary will highlight these and other significant design law and policy developments in 2024.

European Union

The European Union achieved an important milestone in its ongoing efforts to update its rules on design protection. In October, it formally adopted the EU Design Legislative Reform Package, which entered into force on December 8. The reforms aim to better address modern, virtual designs, while improving overall harmonization. Among its most significant changes, the reform:

• confirms that designs of non-physical products can be protected
• extends design protection to animation
• extends the scope of a registered design to cover 3D printing, by categorizing digital creation and sharing as infringing uses
• permanently establishes an exception to design protection for parts used to repair complex products like cars
• eliminates the requirement that designs in a multiple-de-sign application be from the same class
• changes the name of a registered design right from “Community Design Registration” to the wordier but clearer “European Union Design Registration”

These changes should enhance designers’ ability to protect their digital designs, particularly user interfaces that may no longer require a traditional display screen.

These may exist in projected designs, or virtual- and augmented-reality designs. On the other hand, it strips away protections for designers in some fields by allowing designs for repair parts to be more freely copied, so long as the purpose is to restore the complex product to its original appearance.

While the above and other provisions will begin to apply as soon as May 2025, some others will take effect later, in July 2026.

United States

The United States is also reviewing its guidelines relating to digital designs, but continues to lag behind jurisdictions like the European Union and others that have clear guidance for protecting digital designs outside the context of a traditional display screen. In November, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO) updated its examination guidelines for “Computer-Generated Electronic Images,” but this did little more than re-state existing practices for protecting digital user interface designs on a traditional physical display screen.

With that said, some cautious optimism may be in order: throughout 2024 the USPTO sought and received comments from the public on such guidelines. The comments near-universally and robustly encouraged the USPTO to modernize its examination guidelines to acknowledge digital designs as eligible for design patent protection irrespective of a display screen.

It is unclear whether or how the USPTO may act in view of these comments to better protect the modern innovations of digital designers in cutting-edge fields like virtual or augmented reality or holographic interfaces. Its partners in the Industrial Design 5 Forum (ID5)—EU, China, Japan, and Korea—have all taken measures in recent years to enhance their coverage for such designs. Could 2025 be the year that the USPTO begins to catch up?

The USPTO also in 2024 began registering a new category of “design-only” practitioners under a new regime that does not require the same technical qualifications as patent practitioners generally. Instead, would-be “design-only” practitioners may have more design-focused qualifications, such as an industrial design degree. At the end of 2024, there were five individuals registered under this new program.

China

While China’s law changed in 2021 to begin allowing partial-design claiming—the practice of claiming only a portion of an entire article—it was not until January 2024 that guidelines for examining partial designs came into effect. Among other things, the guidelines make clear that a partial design should still form a relatively independent portion of a product, that graphical user interface designs do not require a hardware product to be shown, and that the title of the design should refer to the portion that is claimed. The guidelines have the benefit of providing an authoritative common basis for examination, which had been lacking since the law change in 2021. As examiners and applicants have grown more familiar with how the guidelines are being applied throughout 2024, examination has become more consistent and predictable.

Canada

In June, Canada’s Industrial Design Office revised its practice such that designs applied to buildings and structures can now qualify for design protection. This includes build-ings constructed on-site, which had previously been denied design protection. This change brings Canada’s practice more in line with many other jurisdictions. For example the U.S. has long permitted design patent protection for buildings, and Japan updated its law in 2020 to do so.

Ukraine

Ukraine had been one of the last few jurisdictions not to allow partial-design claiming. No longer. In May, Ukraine adopted new rules permitting protection of partial designs, bringing its practice in this regard in line with the vast majority of jurisdictions. Only a handful remain that do not permit meaningful partial design protection, including Vietnam, Colombia, and Thailand.

Riyadh Design Law Treaty

In November, WIPO member states approved the Riyadh Design Law Treaty. This was the culmination of years of effort toward greater global procedural harmonization in design law. Among other things, the Treaty provides for a 12-month grace period after a public disclosure of a design. During the grace period an applicant can file their design application without the disclosure negatively affecting their ability to secure design rights. Most countries already have some form of grace period, but some use different timeframes, and some notably have none at all. So this step toward greater consistency is a welcome development. The Treaty also sets a minimal list of requirements for granting a filing date, establishes a set of common yet flexible baseline standards for design drawings, provides for at least a 6-month period where a design application can remain unpublished, and supports greater use of electronic filing and document exchange.

The Treaty requires 15 contracting parties to enter into force. The time and process to implementation will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

World Intellectual Property Organization

In other WIPO news, The Hague International Design system expanded again in 2024, adding Saint Kitts and Nevis to bring the scope of the system up to 97 countries. And the 15th edition of the Locarno Classification (a widely-used uniform classification system for designs) was finalized. It adds more than 100 new classes, in addition to making some deletions and changes. The addition of so many new classes reflects the Locarno classification system’s continuous adaptation to reflect advances in technology and investment in design. Its newest classes include delivery drones, jet packs, autonomous cars, electric bicycles, light shields for virtual reality glasses, and holographic projectors. This new 15th edition will enter into force on January 1, 2025, though not all jurisdictions will necessarily adopt it right away.

This article appeared in the 2024 Design Patents Year in Review: Analysis & Trends report.