Industrial design registration

A buyer of a product business meets this registration when checking which product designs the seller actually owns. It covers how a finished article looks, as the Industrial Design Act defines a design, so it sits alongside trademarks and patents in IP due diligence.

Ownership and transfer

Section 12(1) makes the author the first proprietor, unless the author executed the design for another person for good and valuable consideration, in which case that person is; section 12(2) limits that person’s right to the right they acquired. Section 13(1) says every design, registered or not, is transferable in whole or in part. Under section 13(4), an unregistered transfer of a registered design is void against a subsequent transferee whose transfer has been registered.

Keeping the right in force

Under section 10(2), the proprietor must pay prescribed maintenance fees to keep the exclusive right, and section 10(3) deems the term expired if they are not paid in time. CIPO’s industrial designs page offers a search of industrial designs. Ask who the register names as proprietor, whether transfers are registered and whether fees are current.

The IP due-diligence answer covers the wider checks, and an IP assignment is the document that moves the rights.