Summary of Design

As a foreign word derived from the English word 'design', design is a term that is a broad concept encompassing product designs for products, visual designs such as advertisement posters, graphic designs, and digital designs, and environment designs for living spaces and environments.

Article 2(i) of the Design Protection Act prescribes that "a design means the shape, pattern, color of an article [a part of an article (with exceptions in Article 12) and script are included, the same in the below] or a combination thereof, which produces an aesthetic impression in the sense of sight.

Thus, according to the Design Protection Act, a design can be said to be a design for the outside of a corporeal article (or a part of said article) that can be the subject of an independent transaction.

Design Application and Examination Procedure

An application for registering a design can be filed as an examined application for registering a design or an unexamined application for registering a design.

Designs for food products (A1), clothing (B1), bedding (C1), paper printed articles (F3), packaging containers (F4), textile and paper (M1), miscellaneous goods (B2), shoes (B5), teaching materials (F1), office supplies (F2), and the like, which are articles that are highly affected by trends and have short life cycles, should be filed as unexamined applications for registering a design, and other articles should be filed as examined applications for registering a design.

While the articles that can currently be filed as unexamined applications for registering a design are designated into 10 major categories, the rearrangement of these articles and designation methods based on other standards are continuously being evaluated.

Design Application Examination/Registration Flowchart