Innovations of the legal protection of industrial designs

Abstract

The article is dedicated to current issues of legal protection of industrial designs. There were analyzed the innovations concerning the legal regime of the industrial design introduced by the reform of the patent legislation (2020).
 It is substantiated that the reform of patent legislation, which took place in 2020, has significantly changed the level of legal protection of industrial designs, bringing it closer to EU standards. It is proved that the introduction of two types of legal protection of industrial designs is justified: short-term for unregistered, long-term for registered. It is established that the scope of legal protection provided for a registered industrial design is determined by the image of the industrial design entered in the state register of industrial designs, and not by a list of its essential features. It is established that the degree of freedom of the author is taken into account to determine the scope of legal protection of an industrial design. Differences in the exercise of rights to registered and unregistered industrial designs are identified. It is substantiated that industrial design rights may be declared invalid in court or out of court. It is established that the out-of-court procedure for invalidation of industrial design rights consists in the submission by any person to the Appeals Chamber of NIPO a substantiated application for invalidation of industrial design rights in whole or in part on the basis of non-compliance with conditions of legal protection. The importance of the extrajudicial procedure for revoking an industrial design certificate in the framework of the post-grant opposition procedure, which is an effective mechanism for combating patent trolling (well-known designs are registered as industrial designs), has been proved. It is substantiated that the legislator did not pay attention to the peculiarities of the use of registered and unregistered industrial designs in the digital environment, the development of which is often ahead of the relevant legal regulation.