UK businesses urged to prepare for changes to design protection regime

Gill Dennis, intellectual property expert at Pinsent Masons, said: "The government's response gives the clearest indication yet of where UK design law is heading. While it stops short of a wholesale overhaul of the regime, it signals legislative changes in areas including examination of registered designs, deferment periods, protection for digital and animated designs, and post-Brexit unregistered design rights."

“The response is less about immediate legal change and more about identifying future risks and opportunities in the management of design portfolios”, she said.

The government response noted the intention to introduce targeted novelty and individual character searches for some registered design applications.

The current UK system is valued for its speed and relatively low barriers to registration, but concerns were raised during the consultation about anti-competitive filings and registrations that may lack validity. The government now intends to give the registrar powers to conduct searches and examinations in certain circumstances, although guidance on when those powers will be exercised has yet to be published.

Dennis said: "Targeted examination has the potential to make the UK designs register more robust, but the detail will matter. The real test will be whether greater scrutiny can improve confidence in registered rights without sacrificing the speed and accessibility that make the UK system attractive to applicants."

The government has also confirmed plans to introduce a statutory 30-month deferment period, bringing the UK into closer alignment with EU and Hague system arrangements. The change is designed to make it easier for UK businesses to coordinate international filing strategies while keeping new product designs confidential ahead of launch.

Businesses with global product development programmes may find this particularly valuable, as alignment with overseas systems should simplify international protection strategies and reduce administrative complexity.

At the same time, the government intends to publish limited information relating to deferred applications, seeking to balance confidentiality with transparency for third parties.

Another notable development for businesses operating in digital markets is the government's commitment to legislate expressly for the protection of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), animations and transitional digital designs. It also plans to explore technical solutions allowing the filing of video and 3D formats as part of the UK Intellectual Property Office's wider digital transformation programme.

Robert Vile, intellectual property expert at Pinsent Masons, said: "These measures should be particularly relevant to software developers, gaming companies, technology businesses and consumer-facing digital brands, many of which have argued that the current framework does not adequately reflect modern digital product design."

On unregistered design rights, the government will legislate so that first disclosure anywhere in the world can create UK supplementary unregistered design protection.

Vile said: "Since Brexit, UK businesses have faced a frustrating dilemma: a product disclosed first in the EU no longer automatically attracts unregistered design protection in the UK, and vice versa, meaning rights holders risk a gap in protection depending on where they launch first."

He said: "The government's intention to legislate to implement the option of creating a supplementary unregistered design (SUD) right following first disclosure anywhere in the world, with further consideration of whether to also incorporate a grace period, could significantly simplify the management of international design portfolios."

The response also contains proposals relevant to rights holders seeking more affordable enforcement options. Officials will explore extending the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) Small Claims Track (SCT) to cover straightforward registered design disputes. Currently, registered design cases cannot be pursued through the lower-cost procedure, leaving many businesses facing potentially prohibitive litigation costs.

Vile said “The proposal could prove one of the most practically significant reforms under consideration for small to medium sized enterprises and individual designers.”

He said: "The ability to bring a quick and relatively affordable action in the SCT could be a transformative deterrent for companies in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, as rights holders are often deterred from bringing even strong claims where litigation costs outweigh likely commercial benefits."

In addition, following a call for evidence, ministers concluded that there was insufficient justification for introducing criminal offences for infringement of unregistered designs.

The response also confirms the government's decision not to tackle uncertainty surrounding the overlap between copyright and design rights. Instead, ministers have opted to leave further clarification to the courts.

Dennis said: "The decision to leave the copyright and design-right overlap to the courts feels like a missed opportunity given the acknowledged confusion around where the boundary lies. Waiting for the courts to draw that line leaves businesses carrying the uncertainty, particularly when deciding what protection they have and how far they can enforce it."

She added: "There are some welcome steps here, but overall, the response feels cautious where bolder reform was possible. Unregistered design rights are a prime example: an opportunity for meaningful reform has, for now, been left on the table."