Unregistered Designs

Abstract

Until the 1988 Act, protection for designs, whether artistic or functional, was dealt with by copyright and registered designs (and, to a lesser extent, patents). The duration of copyright protection was felt inappropriate for functional and commercially exploited articles and this was addressed to a certain extent by the Design Copyright Act 1968 (see Chapter 18). The registered design system was seen as a little too stringent and too formalistic to be of real commercial use to an industrial concern that produces thousands of designs requiring some level of protection.