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The Industrial Designs Act, 2001 was brought into force by the
Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment on the 1st of July
2002 for the protection of industrial designs which are the non-functional
aspects affixed to any article made up from its shape or decoration.
This new Act, which gives effect to European Directive 98/71 on
the legal protection of designs, sets out the requirements that
are necessary in order to avail of the protection conferred by the
Act.
The main changes brought about by the new Act are that it is no
longer a requirement for a registrable design to solely have eye
appeal with factors such as novelty and individual character now
being taken into account and that novelty is now assessed on a global
scale as opposed to the previous position which was limited to the
Irish jurisdiction. The new Act has also overlapped industrial design
protection with other areas of intellectual property law. The 2001
Act now provides that copyright protection is also available for
registrable designs and the definition of a registrable design has
been extended to include graphic symbols thereby overlapping industrial
design law with the trade mark protection of brands and logos.
In addition to registering designs under the 2001 Act, an European
Community design right has come into force from the 6th of March
2002. Apart from being able to register a design on an EU-wide basis,
it is now also possible for designers to receive protection for
their unregistered but registrable designs for a period of three
years from the date on which the design was first made available
to the public within the Community.
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