Mon. Sep 9th, 2024

Design in the digital age: EU lawmakers reach deal on updated rules

Dec 6, 2023 , , , ,
Brussels, 5 December 2023
  • Make EU design system ready for digital technologies such as 3D printing supported by AI
  • Motivate individual designers and SMEs to protect their designs
  • Phasing out design protection for spare parts

Revamped EU design package aims to modernise existing design protection system, make it fit for the digital age and for the open spare parts market.

Negotiators of the Legal Affairs Committee struck a deal with EU governments on Tuesday on the update of the regulation and a directive ensuring accessible and affordable design protection in the EU. This legislative package aims to prepare EU design protection scheme for the emergence of new digital technologies such as 3D printing, also supported by artificial intelligence. Therefore not only physical objects will be eligible for design protection but also those visualised in a graphic or apparent from the spatial arrangement of items including fonts, logos, maps or animations. Negotiators agreed that registration of the design could be refused, if it reproduces elements of cultural heritage, as defined by the UNESCO, such as traditional costumes, artefacts, natural or cultural monuments or sites.

Design protection fees adjusted

Registered EU design will be protected for five years and this protection can be renewed by five-year periods for maximum total length of 25 years. Negotiators agreed on the headline registration fee to be 350 euro and they also adjusted prices of renewal fees to motivate individual designers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to protect their designs. To strengthen legal certainty, MEPs ensured that certain powers of the executive director of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the institution managing the protection of EU designs, would be better framed, such as allowing the director to require less documentation from applicants respecting the principle of equal treatment.

Single market in repair spare parts

Negotiators agreed to approximate design protection laws of member states to ensure fair competition and smooth functioning of the internal market when it comes to repair of products. Design of components of complex products will not be protected by EU design if they are used for the repair just to restore the original appearance of the product. MEPs ensured that this will only be possible if consumers are appropriately informed about the identity of the producer and commercial origin of the repair product. They insist that the consumers will thus be able to make an informed choice between competing repair products. According to the new rules, EU countries still protecting design of spare parts will have to withdraw that protection. MEPs negotiated shortening of related transitional period to eight years instead of ten.

Quote

“We have reached a good compromise despite difficult negotiations. The European Parliament was able to defend its mandate on most of the open points and ensured that the new legislation will modernise the design protection in the EU and make it ready for digital challenges,” said lead MEP Gilles Lebreton (ID, FR) following the negotiations.

Background

In reaction to the European Parliament resolution from November 2021, the Commission submitted a proposal in November 2022 to update a regulation on community designs and a related directive on the legal protection of designs. The aim is to encourage design innovation in the digital age and make the process of protecting design rights more accessible and efficient while ensuring approximation of national design systems and finalisation of the single market in repair spare parts.

Next steps

The legislation now requires formal approval by the European Parliament plenary and the member states before it can enter into force.

Further information

 

EU Council background regarding the provisional deal on the design protection package

The Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional deal on the revision of the two legislative proposals of the designs package: the directive for the legal protection of designs and the regulation on Community designs. The new texts update the 20-year-old design legislation, aiming to facilitate the protection of industrial designs and adapt EU law in this area to the challenges of a digital and 3D-printing world.

The provisional agreement liberalises the spare parts market, establishes the fees to be paid in order to register and renew an EU design, prevents cultural heritage from being registered as design and sets the transposition period for the directive and the review period for the regulation.

Good design is very often what makes consumers choose a car, a chair, a lamp or any other product. Great designers have made our products favourite choices worldwide, but the intellectual property of good design needs to be protected against copies and counterfeiting. The agreement reached today will make it easier, cheaper and faster for designers to protect their creations, even in digital times.

Jordi Hereu i Boher, Spanish Minister for Industry and Tourism

Commission proposal

An industrial design constitutes the external appearance of a product. The visual appeal created by a design is one of the key factors influencing a consumer’s preference for one product over another. Good design is an important competitive advantage for producers and adds value to the product. However, designs need to be protected against copies or imitations.

The directive and regulation agreed on today update the current legislation from 2002, making it easier to register designs at EU level and ensuring that European and national procedures are harmonised. It also introduces a ‘repair clause’ with new rules regarding exceptions from design protection for spare parts used for repair of complex products, such as cars.

Main elements of the agreement

The provisional agreement reached today between the two co-legislators frames the scope of the directive, clarifies the rules of the ‘repair clause’, sets the fees for registering a design and adjusts the transposition period for the directive on design protection.

Repair clause

The provisional agreement clarifies the conditions of the ‘repair clause’. This clause excludes from design protection the replacement parts for a complex product that are used to restore its original appearance but only for repair purposes and if the replacement part looks exactly like the original piece (i.e. a damaged door, or a broken light of a car that should be replaced to make the car look as it was). This clause is intended to liberalise the spare parts market and ensure that more accessible spare parts for repair are available to consumers across the EU. This may create between € 340-544 million in savings for consumers over 10 years.

The text agreed on today keeps a balance between the interests of consumers, design holders, and the replacement-parts industry. The agreement adds the ‘repair clause’ to the directive on the legal protection of designs (it was previously included only in the regulation on designs), so there is an alignment between the European designs system (regulation) and the national ones (directive). The agreement lays down a harmonised transitional period of 8 years for the repair clause.

Fees and office services

To ensure the viable co-existence of national and EU design protection systems, the provisional agreement increases EU-wide fees, which will be higher compared with national-only protection schemes, to reflect the larger territorial scope of the EU-wide design protection. Offices will have the duty to warn designers when the expiry date of their design rights is approaching.

Cultural heritage

The agreement forbids that cultural heritage elements of national interest (for instance the traditional costume of a region) could be protected as private designs. To frame the limits of this disposition, the co-legislators agreed on using the UNESCO definition of ‘cultural heritage’.

Transposition period

Finally, the co-legislators have agreed that member states will have a period of 36 months to take the necessary measures to transpose the directive for the legal protection of designs. The regulation on EU designs will be applicable throughout the EU once it comes into force.

Next steps

The provisional agreement reached with the European Parliament now needs to be endorsed and formally adopted by both institutions.

Background

Design-intensive industries represent almost 16% of GDP and 14% of all jobs in the EU. On 10 November 2020, the Council called on the Commission to present proposals to modernise the EU’s design protection system, which was almost 20 years old.

On 28 November 2022, the Commission published a package of measures with two proposals: a regulation amending Council regulation (EC) no 6/2002 on Community designs and a directive on the legal protection of designs (recast of directive 98/71/EC). The Council adopted its position on 25 September 2023.

 

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